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CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI

MICHELANGELO

OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL

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CONSTANTINO
BRUMIDI

MICHELANGELO OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL

By Myrtle Cheney Murdock

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Monumental Press, Inc.
WASHINGTON · 1950


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

{v} COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY MYRTLE CHENEY MURDOCK, WASHINGTON, D. C.


TO MY SON

LT. DAVID N. MURDOCK



Musician, Athlete, Infantryman
killed in action at Palermo, Italy
August 11, 1943

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Preface

IT SHOULD be made clear by way of an introduction to this appraisal of Constantino Brumidi that the author is neither an artist nor an art critic. I am simply the wife of a Western Congressman who has been stirred by the patriotism of the Italian refugee-artist, Brumidi; by his exquisite decorations on the walls and ceilings of our Capitol Building of the United States; by his persistent effort in the face of blinding criticism; and finally by the lack, of recognition characterized by his unmarked burial place.

I have asked myself these questions many times: “How can countless exquisite frescoes and paintings adorn our Capitol Building and yet the American people have little or no knowledge of their existence?” “Can an artist spend twenty-five years decorating this Capitol Building and then remain as unknown as his frescoes?” “How could a Government such as ours, that has rewarded so many for so much, forget the artist, Brumidi, and let him lie unhonored and unknown for seventy years in an unmarked grave?”

These questions I cannot answer. I can only record for you authenticated Brumidi facts as they have unfolded themselves to me during the fourteen years I have been inspired by the artist’s frescoes—all the time waiting for a poet or an artist to tell this story.

However, I do know that great service and sacrifice in our Democracy often are not rewarded until long years have slipped away. I know, too, that unjust criticism and ridicule can so befog the patriotic works of a good man that even half a century is often not long enough for those works to emerge with all their significant meaning.

I know, also, that when the early refugees to our shores negotiated immediately for citizenship it indicated sincere appreciation for America. This was true of Constantino Brumidi. He landed in New York on September 18, 1852; he filed his original intention to become a citizen of the United States on November 9, 1852; and he was admitted and sworn on November 12, 1857. Indeed, he was so fired with love of liberty that no amount of work and determined effort was too great for him to expend for his adopted country.

He worked on the Capitol Building of the United States throughout the terms of six presidents: Franklin Pierce; James Buchanan; Abraham Lincoln; Andrew Johnson; Ulysses S. Grant; and Rutherford B. Hayes. He made frescoed ceilings and wall murals in six Committee Rooms—five in the Senate extension and one in the House extension. He is responsible for the complete design and execution of the President’s Room in the Senate Annex, the Senate Reception Room and a large mural in the House of Representatives itself, the latter bearing his signature.

At the age of sixty he finished the almost unbelievable task of painting in the very top of the Dome of the Capitol Building 4,664 square feet of concave fresco—huge colorful figures that appear life-size 180 feet below. Brumidi was evidently in sympathy with the words of Lincoln, voiced when a critic put this question to our great President, “Do you intend to continue building on the Capitol Dome during this war?” Lincoln replied, “If the world sees this Capitol going on they will know that we intend the Union shall go on.”

And even before the Civil War Brumidi{viii} sketched the fifteen scenes of American history for a frieze to encircle the Rotunda, some 58 feet above the floor. He had prayed to live long enough to paint this frieze, but when the signal finally came from Capitol authorities to begin this last cherished fresco he was an old man of seventy-two. Brumidi had lost his physical strength but not his will to work toward the completion of his dream.

The young wife he had married at the height of his American financial success had long since gone with a younger man; his lonely years and his poverty weighed heavily upon him; criticism and ridicule had undoubtedly taken their toll but the old artist persistently stayed with that last assignment.

Even when he slipped on his painting platform, the day of his almost fatal accident, and hung by his bare hands 58 feet above the stone floor of the Rotunda, until workmen could reach him from the top of the Dome and from the floor below—even then it must have been sheer will power that closed those old artist hands tight enough to hold his body weight from the floor below.

But he never came back to finish his frieze. He died “at his parlor studio with his work about him,” amid the loneliness and poverty which he feared. He was buried by a few friends and forgotten.

That burial place was lost to our National Government for a period of seventy years but the 81st Congress of the United States, without debate, has voted to erect a monument, a simple marker, at the recently found burial site of the Capitol artist. This National recognition, though belated, is sincere appreciation for the Brumidi frescoes in the Capitol Building of the United States that proclaim for all time the artist’s genius, his love of liberty, and his reverence for America.

There is continually being uncovered other evidence of appreciation for the artist Brumidi—recognition that has lain buried in the hearts and homes of numerous American families and churches since the year 1880. Many Brumidi canvases outside the Capitol Building of the United States have been found: portraits of friends; working sketches in color for the artist’s huge frescoes; and magnificent murals for church altars. Some of these treasures are being offered to the Government of the United States with the thought that a collection of Brumidiana may ultimately be on exhibit at some central spot accessible to the American people.

What the critics termed “gaudy colored plaster” ninety years ago can, by the miracle of modern printing, be reproduced for us today with all the original color preserved. Could the artist have foreseen the exquisite Brumidi reproductions in this book the burden of his last lonely years would have been lightened.

M. C. M.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Vital research, extending over a period of years, necessarily touches many people. At the culmination of any valued study an author suddenly finds himself indebted to countless individuals. Fashioning a mosaic from the life of Constantino Brumidi in spite of many missing pieces has been no exception. I find myself humble before my corps of helpers.

After a dozen years of assembling the Brumidi life story it suddenly became urgent that the material should be in printed form. At the same time it also became apparent that publishing a Brumidi volume featuring the artist’s Capital frescoes in color might never be realized, due to the initial cost of such a book. At a crucial moment, two Foundations, who wish to remain anonymous, became interested in the Capitol artist and were anxious to help the project. Their timely grants influenced beyond measure the final decision that such a publication could be attempted. I acknowledge this valued assistance with deepest gratitude.

Years before this publication was conceived I began collecting reproductions of the Brumidi Capitol frescoes. The book itself makes use of this collection together with many color reproductions by the same nationally known photographer, Theodor Horydczak. The Brumidi frontispiece by Brady was made by Mary Evans of the L. C. Handy Studios.

Also before there was any thought of a publication the Architect of the Capitol, the Hon. David Lynn, made available to me the Brumidi files for study. The interest and courtesy of Mr. Lynn and his assistants always spurred my efforts. The Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, the Hon. Joseph C. Duke, and the Sergeant at Arms of the House, the Hon. Joseph H. Callahan, have at all times shown their concern for the Brumidi project by making available to the author the services of their offices.

I have needed and greatly valued the sincere interest of the Capitol Guides and their leader, Harry Nash, who has been a Brumidi enthusiast during his thirty-five years’ work as a guide in the Capitol Building of the United States.

The Congressional services of the Library of Congress have shown great enthusiasm for the Brumidi research by tracing willingly every suggested clue and in addition often have launched forth on what seemed completely hidden trails and emerged with valuable materials. I am remembering at the moment the late George H. Milne of the Congressional Reading Room whose appreciative feeling for Brumidi and his art helped to bolster my early enthusiasm. The National Archives is another such human service in our governmental set-up. It was personal appreciation for Brumidi on the part of a group of employees of the National Archives that led to the finding of so many public documents vital to this study.

I wish to acknowledge especially the services of the National Gallery of Art and the National Collection of Fine Arts. These two galleries have had a continuing interest in the unfolding Brumidi story. The officials of the National Gallery of Art not only have been willing consultants concerning the materials for an art book but have commissioned their fresco expert to climb to the top of the Capitol Dome to examine minutely the 4,664 square feet of Brumidi painting. When the expert pronounced the Canopy “real fresco,” the National Gallery sincerely shared my own joy at this verification. A special debt of gratitude goes to the Director of the National{x} Collection of Fine Arts, Thomas M. Beggs, for his splendid introduction to this Brumidi memorial volume.

Because of Brumidi’s twenty-five years’ service within the Capitol Building of the United States, the nation’s Public Printer, the Hon. John J. Deviny, of the Government Printing Office, delegated Frank H. Mortimer, Director of Typography and Design, to make available to the author consultation and advice upon the many problems connected with the publication of an art book. Mr. Mortimer and Mr. Warren W. Ferris of the Division of Typography and Design have carried their help far beyond the limit of duty. Their feeling for the subject matter of the book that makes known the forgotten Capitol artist, and their desire to show forth his work with the best possible arrangement and design, are partly responsible for the dignified beauty of this volume.

Many individuals throughout the Capital City have helped materially by their Brumidi enthusiasm, their sincere good wishes and by their active interest in locating Brumidiana outside the Capitol Building. Mildred Thompson, the great-grandniece of Mrs. Brumidi, the former Lola Germon, has carried on consistent research of her own into the Germon family which has verified many dates and other facts concerning the Capitol artist. James H. Rowe, grandnephew of Lola Germon Brumidi, has performed an outstanding service to the author by making available to her the working sketches for the Rotunda Frieze. His desire to make known his treasure by sending the priceless scroll across the continent is deeply appreciated, although the sketches arrived almost too late to have even one of the fifteen included on the last page of the book’s supplement.

Washington clubs and organizations have displayed their love for the Capitol Building of the United States by supporting in every possible way the author’s over-all plan to make known the forgotten Capitol artist. Native Washingtonians together with recent arrivals have been eager to visit the Capitol Building and to be shown the Brumidi frescoes. These same Brumidi friends have also helped to promote the marking of the artist’s lonely grave in Glenwood Cemetery.

Members of the Washington Press have been especially understanding and helpful. Editors, correspondents and reporters alike have combined to tell the American people about this Capitol artist and his great love for American liberty. This sincere spirit of cooperation and feeling for Brumidi is acknowledged appreciatively.

Congressman Murdock has consistently encouraged the Brumidi research through the years. His continued patient interest has helped immeasurably. To him and to Martha Wing go my last measure of gratitude for their persistent combing of the manuscript for minute error.

It is a warm and friendly feeling of indebtedness that I have toward those who have made appraisals in writing for this volume: Mr. Beggs adds new appreciation for the Italian artist; Architect Lynn sees Brumidi an integral part of the Capitol Building; and Virgil Perry pays tribute to the author and to the book in a manner to make us proud. All of this courtesy, however, is above and beyond friendship. It is a vital part of the Memorial to Constantino Brumidi.

Myrtle Cheney Murdock

Washington, D. C., October, 1950
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Table of Contents

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Illustrations

[* Indicates real fresco.]

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Introduction

ENSHRINED in the domed Rotunda of the United States Capitol, as in the Roman Pantheon from which it is descended, are the noblest hopes of a mighty Nation. Yet less fearful of incurring the wrath of an unpropitiated power than the ancients who raised a statue in their sacred temple to “The Unknown God,” the American people have neglected and all but forgotten patriotic mural painting. Long overdue also is grateful tribute to its one-time protagonist, Constantino Brumidi. The story of Brumidi’s life in this country and his labors to express allegorically its principles of government and record visually the events and personalities which achieved its establishment should be instructive reading for many and particularly for those concerned with the direction of American painting. By it they may be led to the realization of a vital force that should be an important factor in national life, an unknown power needed now in support of the heritage we are called upon to defend.

The early settler in North America had little opportunity for monumental painting. The austerity of religious belief dominating many new world settlements, infused as they were with the spirit of the Reformation, afforded meager encouragement to its development. American artists, following Benjamin West to England, leaned heavily upon British custom and precedent. West’s pupils—Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and Joseph Wright—became makers of likenesses, and liberty-loving John Trumbull pursued historical painting to produce four of the eight great framed pictures of the Rotunda of the Capitol. Contrasted with Brumidi’s paintings, these mark the difference between the easel picture, a loosely related, detachable embellishment, and mural decoration designed in scale and color especially to enhance architecture.

The easel picture, the favored form of painting in the United States, is a symbol not only of the American artist’s independence of expression and freedom of enterprise but also of his dependence upon his own resources and private patronage. Easily transported, it is adaptable for exhibit in distant galleries, for sale to successive owners, and is more easily reproduced. In the 19th century it was largely the means of living for the professional fine artist. George Catlin found admission charges to his exhibits remunerative. Others turned to engravings of their subjects for profit. In the 20th century the framed picture has become the delight of the amateur. American enjoyment of freedom of thought and action is lived in the solitude of private studios. Yet too rarely do these common privileges and fortunate blessings become the subject matter of the canvases. These canvases exist solely for the enjoyment of the individual.

Mural painting, however, in comparison to easel picture painting, is made for the edification of large numbers of people and demands the formal presentation of themes affecting all. The work of Brumidi, though in a foreign style long past the crest of its vigor in service to the Church, was found more suited to the requirements of monumental architecture than that of native painters of the middle of the 19th century.{xvi}

The monumental mural is usually better if executed in fresco, the medium which Brumidi used. This process of painting directly on the wall is called “fresco secco” if the wall is allowed to harden and become almost dry and the pigment bound to it by means of a glue size, casein or egg yolk. This is much inferior to the true or “buono fresco” employed by Brumidi in the dome which is painting on freshly laid plaster with pigment suspended in pure water. Because the mortar sets in six or eight hours the painting must be done in sections no larger than can be completed at one time. In true fresco a finished study is generally required. Frequently this assumes the form of a full-size detailed drawing known as a cartoon. The outline of this is transferred to the damp plaster wall by pouncing dry color through a perforated tracing or “pattern,” or the cartoon on very light tough paper may be held against the surface and contours pressed into the damp wall with a stylus.

Figures are modeled within the drawn lines. Terre verte is employed in underpainting flesh, the rosier tones being superimposed later. Accessories are painted in washes of varying depths and appropriate colors further deepened or lightened until the desired three-dimensional effect is gained. In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo used color glazes with such economy that the panels and single figures of his great ceiling decorations truly appear as water color paintings. Brumidi depended upon a heavier use of pigment and built up his lights opaquely.

If the day’s allotted portion is not satisfactorily finished while the wall is still absorbent, it must be removed and worked again. As the moisture leaves, the mortar sets and the wall hardens, its colors becoming lighter and more sparkling as the white lime and crystalline sand shine through. Carbon dioxide, ever present in the air, gradually combines with calcium hydroxide of the lime plaster resulting in a carbonate not unlike marble itself and very durable. Thus, the decoration is truly a part of the architecture and, being inseparable from it, is far more satisfactory than canvases from the most able painters to be attached to wall or ceiling.

In the face of the current challenge to the American way of life our painters should be given space in our Federal and State buildings for decorations reaffirming the faith that made our Nation great. More artists at present should be engaged in depicting the virtues of our system of government in the interest of the development of appreciative citizenship upon which it so justly depends.

Today, due to the rapidly declining private fortunes of the industrialist-connoisseur class, the artist is facing a vacuity in art patronage. Establish in its place a small but steadily sustained federal program of mural painting, and a revival is possible here in the United States not unlike that experienced in England when the social satire of Hogarth’s brush was followed under royal patronage by one of the most productive and prosperous periods of British painting.

This penetrating study of the life and works of Constantino Brumidi by Dr. Murdock should arouse in public-spirited readers a desire to honor the fresco artist for his accomplishment, an understanding of which is of fundamental importance in a movement to further a strong national program of mural art of an inspiring type. It is appropriate that this history be addressed to laymen by one alert to the problems of the hour and sensitive to the need of general public awareness of the power of painting.

Thomas M. Beggs, Director
NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION {1}

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Constantino Brumidi, Italian Refugee

IT WAS late afternoon. The House of Representatives Chamber in the Capitol Building of the United States was deserted, save for one lone figure that stood motionless before the freshly painted mural on the south wall. Everything about this man in long black cape and close fitting beret betokened pride and triumph in achievement—the tense erectness of the body, the tilt of the head, the glow of the cheek and even the angle at which he held his pallet and brush. Suddenly, with strength and determination he said aloud, “I’ll do it,” then he rushed back to the picture, bent possessively over the lower right hand corner and began painting with quick, deft movements. When the lonely figure finally left the Chamber he seemed so satisfied with his work that he never once looked back.

Eighty years later as I stood before that mural on the south wall of our House of Representatives Chamber—that portrayal of a crisis in American history, representing Washington at Yorktown, I beheld for the first time the words in the lower right hand corner, left by that proud painter back in 1857, “C. Brumidi, artist. Citizen of the U. S.” Suddenly I asked myself, “Who is this C. Brumidi who has so much pride in his adopted country as to paint a portion of its Revolutionary history on the wall of the House of Representatives Chamber, and who glories so much in the citizenship of his adopted country that he emblazons that sentiment forever before the Congress of the United States?” I had no thought at that moment that those words inscribed on the wall of the Capitol Building of the United States by Constantino Brumidi could well be considered his epitaph, for he had no other, expressed in words. And of course I was unaware of the bitter criticism that followed his every effort. But I am ahead of my story.

So much did I want to see what this lover of America had done for his adopted country by way of decorating our Capitol Building, that I searched out every frescoed wall and ceiling, every painted panel, lunette, or medallion in committee rooms, corridors and Rotunda that were attributed to the Italian artist. As the number of those paintings mounted in my tabulations and as the beauty of his decorations sank into my consciousness, I decided he must have spent a lifetime in America for surely it would take a lifetime for such accomplishment. Then I learned{4} that Brumidi came from Italy to America when he was almost fifty years old!

From meager biographical data the following additional facts came quickly to light: Brumidi was born in Italy in 1805, grew up in Rome, was admitted to the Academy of Arts in that city when only thirteen years old, and at the age of about thirty-five “restored some paintings in the Sacred Palaces to the full satisfaction of Pope Gregory XVIth.”

About all that is known of the artist’s next twenty years is that he became involved in “the French occupation of Rome in the year 1849 for the suppression of Republican institutions,” and when his friend, Pope Pius IX, was banished from Rome Brumidi was thrown into prison for fourteen months. As Captain of the Papal Guard Brumidi had refused to obey certain orders against his friends which resulted in the enmity of Cardinal Antonelli, Minister of State. Pope Pius IX was finally restored to the Vatican but he was unable to save Brumidi except on condition that the artist would flee the country and never return. Finally, to save his own life, Brumidi was forced to leave Italy. He reached America in 1852.

While the above facts concerning Brumidi were much the same in the few available references in the Library of Congress, stories of Brumidi’s life in America and of his services to the United States seemed to vary with the enthusiasm or bias of the narrator. Certain conflicting statements centered about the merit and authenticity of his paintings; the genuineness of his American patriotism; the amount of money paid him for the paintings in the Capitol Building; the loyalty of the artist’s family; the appreciation of the American people; and the poverty of the artist at the time of his death. For the most part, however, little has been written and less has been publicly known about the artist who spent his last twenty-five years in devoted effort toward beautifying the Capitol Building of the United States.

The most sympathetic appraisals of Brumidi’s art and his years in America have been done by Charles E. Fairman, Smith D. Fry, George C. Hazelton, Randolph Keim, and S. D. Wyeth. Mr. Wyeth wrote a small pamphlet of six pages in 1866 on “Brumidi’s Allegorical Painting within the Canopy of the Rotunda.” That was the year after Brumidi had finished the huge canopy fresco in the Dome of the Capitol Building. The author was so intent upon the allegorical interpretation of the figures in the Dome canopy that he almost forgot the artist and his art. He did, however, refer to Brumidi in this manner, “Brumidi has been mainly engaged for years in ornamenting various portions of the walls of the Capitol, and his name will ever be associated with the history and beauty of our world renowned National building.”

THE EYE OF THE DOME

The focal point of this Rotunda panorama is the huge Brumidi fresco covering The Eye of the Dome. At this perspective the six allegorical groupings about the circumference of the fresco are partly hidden from view. A portion of Brumidi’s unfinished frieze, painted in imitation sculpture, shows below the windows. Two white balconies encircle the dome, one between the windows and the frieze, and the other at the very top. A hidden stairway winds its way between the two iron shells of the Dome, a vertical distance of 180 feet from the rotunda floor.

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Since the Rotunda scaffolding, from which Brumidi worked on the Dome canopy, was removed in January 1866 and the magnificent fresco was then lighted and displayed for the first time to the public, we have every reason to believe that Wyeth’s six pages of allegorical explanations of that huge fresco, printed the same year, were direct from Brumidi’s own carefully planned allegories.

The tiny book entitled, “Keim’s Capitol Interior and Diagrams” was published in 1874. Since its stated purpose was “to furnish the visitor to the Capitol with complete and reliable plans and diagrams, with reference to and accurate descriptions of all objects of interest within the building,” it made no effort to evaluate the Brumidi paintings but it did give a comprehensive record throughout as to the location of Brumidi’s work. Most of the Brumidi frescoes, oils, and decorative portions can still be identified by the Keim references but some are evidently gone forever, while others undoubtedly are merely covered by the wall board or artificial ceiling panels of later renovations.

In George C. Hazelton’s book, “The National Capitol,” printed in 1897, and dealing with “The Architecture, Art and History of the National Capitol,” we find Brumidi a bit more appreciatively treated. Said Hazelton, “No higher compliment could be paid to his genius than the expression of a group of artists who were decorating the new building for the Congressional Library. When they visited the Capitol to study the frescoes of the Italian, they said, ‘We have nothing equal to this in the Library. There is no one who can do such work today.’” Then Hazelton continued, “Brumidi’s work so identifies him with the Capitol Building that he may almost now be called the Michelangelo of the Capitol.”

In “Fry’s Patriotic Story of the Capitol,” a booklet published in 1912, the author refers repeatedly to Brumidi in such an intimate way as to lead the reader to believe that Smith D. Fry must have known Brumidi personally and must have loved the artist genuinely. Since Mr. Fry graduated from law school the year the artist died it is not impossible that the two were personally acquainted. In the following Fry quotation there is evidence to support this view and the human touch to the biographical sketch may have come direct from the artist himself. Mr. Fry wrote,

“When about forty years of age, Brumidi threw away his brush and his great career, declaring that he would never paint another stroke until he had found liberty. Because of an indignity suffered by a member of his family he became a revolutionary soldier and fought in vain for liberty. When almost fifty years old he was banished from Italy and came to America. Here he found liberty and became an intensely patriotic citizen.”

Mr. Fry then gives a direct quotation from the artist himself. This is unique, being the only direct quotation from Brumidi passed on in this manner. Said Mr. Fry, “When Brumidi’s merit was disclosed (in America) fame and fortune sought him. Thousands of dollars were his for the taking. He refused all allurements in these words, ‘I have no longer any desire for fame or fortune. My one ambition and my daily prayer is that I may live long enough to make beautiful the Capitol of the one country on earth in which there is liberty.’”

Charles E. Fairman, art curator of the Capitol for thirty-two years, compiled during that time valuable records on the “Art and Artists of the Capitol of the United States of{7} America.” Mr. Fairman was born in 1854 about the time Brumidi began his decorations of the Capitol Building. Although Mr. Fairman did not begin his own work at the Capitol Building until 1911 it is entirely possible that as a young man he had occasion to watch Brumidi at work. While Mr. Fairman maintains an impersonal attitude in his treatment of Brumidi, his record is invaluable as proof of the authenticity of certain Brumidi frescoes and paintings.

The whole colossal piece of research so carefully assembled by Mr. Fairman and printed in 1927 contained the best summary of documentary material available on Constantino Brumidi. Since Mr. Fairman’s book covered all art and artists in any manner having connection with the Capitol Building the parts devoted to Brumidi and his murals occupy a not too prominent division of the book. However, Mr. Fairman’s combined references to Constantino Brumidi are of great service to one making a more extended study of the Capitol muralist.

The Daily Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia announced Brumidi’s death in its issue of February 19, 1880. On the following day this same paper carried a lengthy article purporting to be an evaluation of the Brumidi frescoes. So scathing and crude was the criticism by this anonymous writer, even before the old artist had been buried, that one senses instinctively that this same type of critical carping had no doubt been stalking Brumidi from other sources during a period of years. The following quotation is a glaring example of this unjust criticism:

“...Of Brumidi, the frescoer of the Capitol at Washington, whose death was announced yesterday, it may be said, ‘He was most industrious.’ If hard work always represents a value given and received, the industrious Brumidi could be put down as having fairly earned the large sums which must have been paid him out of the public treasury. But, if the quality of his work is considered, we doubt whether those who are at all competent to judge with regard to the matter will differ among themselves as to the fact that his employment for a long term of years, in the face of repeated and emphatic protests from people who knew what good decoration was, was most scandalous.

“...He was permitted to paint on the interior of the dome a composition which, both in design and execution, is about as abominable as anything of that kind well could be. Now that he is dead and out of the way, let us hope that something like a serious effort will be made to have his place filled by an artist who is an artist, and who has some claims to consideration other than that of being skilled in the fresco process.”

On that same day, Friday, February 20, 1880, another reporter, this time for the Washington Post in the Capital City, told of the death and life of Brumidi with a show of sympathetic appreciation. A portion of this article follows:

DEATH OF A GREAT ARTIST

“Constantino Brumidi, the artist, died yesterday morning at his residence, 921 G Street, at 6:30 o’clock. For months past he has been failing, but until within two weeks has been able to work every day in his studio, and was dressed and sat up each day until the one preceding his death. For a fortnight he has been failing rapidly. The last twenty-four hours before his death he was unconscious, but at the last moment he recognized those around him. The funeral will be attended from the house on Saturday. Mr. Brumidi leaves no{8} family in this city except an adopted son, who bears his name and has adopted his father’s profession.

“Almost until the last hour he continued his work on the frescoes in the dome of the Capitol, though compelled to sit instead of standing, his hand and eye were as true and strong as ever, and the work from that point on shows no loss in spirit or excellence of execution. For months the little scaffold that clings to the wall in mid air under the dome of the Capitol has been deserted, and curious strangers, looking at the neglected cartoons hanging over the railings have been told that Brumidi would never come back to finish his frescoes. It was the dream of his life that he should come back. He wanted with his own hand to lead that historic procession round the dome till the encircling frieze should be complete. Of late, as growing infirmities have pressed upon him, he has gradually abandoned the hope and occupied himself in enlarging his original cartoons to working size, so that any artist might complete the work by simply following copy.—He lies in the pleasant parlor studio of his house, in death as in life, with his work about him. Half-finished designs are sketched on the walls, and busts and statuettes fill the corners; canvas and palette are on the easel.”

In the Senate of the United States on February 24, 1880, four days after the burial of Brumidi, two speeches were made in reference to the artist, one by Senator Voorhees of Indiana, and another by Senator Morrill of Vermont. Senator Voorhees eulogized Brumidi in this manner:

“May I not be pardoned some brief mention of the wonderful genius, so long, so gently, and so beautifully associated with this Capitol? He died poor, without money enough to bury his worn-out body, but how rich the inheritance he has left to the present and succeeding ages! During more than a quarter of a century he hovered along these walls from the basement to the Dome, leaving creations of imperishable beauty wherever his touch has been. Wherever he paused by a panel, or was seen suspended to a ceiling, there soon appeared the brilliant conceptions of his fertile and cultivated mind. We can form no correct idea of the extent, the variety, and the perfection of his taste and skill as an artist without sometimes forgetting our pressing cares, as we look in detail over his field of labor.”

Senator Morrill spoke of the artist in these words of friendship and understanding:

“Covering as he has done so much space with his fresco paintings—so difficult and so durable—it is wonderful that so great a part should be fairly excellent and so little that

BRUMIDI STAIRWAY

So long has the name Brumidi been associated with the lovely cherubs about the Capitol Building that even this bronze staircase has come to be called a “Brumidi Stairway.” Two such Brumidi stairways lead from the House Chamber and two from the Senate Chamber. Hazelton wrote in 1897, “Brumidi made the attractive designs of the eagle, deer, and cherubs for all the railings upon paper; they were modeled by Baudin and cast in Philadelphia.” Mr. Baudin wrote from Philadelphia to Captain Meigs in 1857, “...I am waiting for the drawings for the stair rail....”

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competent critics esteem otherwise. If he has not attempted the ambitious role of the old masters on the walls and ceilings of churches, it may be at least said that his hand has rarely touched anything which it has not decorated. Even after that accident by which his life hung many minutes fearfully imperiled under the Dome of the Capitol, his latest work there, unfinished though it be, shows that his hand had not lost its cunning, and his acquaintance with American history and skill in its portrayal has, perhaps, never been more happily displayed.

“Those who have, without any special intimacy, barely seen this poor and quiet old man as he slowly passed and repassed to his daily tasks or who have but for a moment listened to his speech in broken English, and never heard his glib tongue when he met those with whom he could converse in his native language, will hardly comprehend his merits as a severe student in the art to which he had devoted his whole life, still less will they be inclined to credit the rapid and correct drawing of which he was undoubtedly a master; but the evidences of his rare genius and of swift work are too conspicuous to be denied. We have only to look around to behold them all.

“Brumidi was a diligent reader of Dante, of Gibbon, of Bancroft, and many other works from which he derived his historical and classical aid and his great desire was that he might live to complete his last great work. So long had he devoted his heart and strength to this Capitol that his love and reverence for it was not surpassed by even that of Michael Angelo for St. Peter’s.”

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Brumidi Art in the United States Capitol

BRUMIDI’S art in the Capitol Building is not all accessible to the casual visitor. The large mural already mentioned which the old master executed on the wall of the House of Representatives Chamber can be viewed by visitors only from the galleries of the House, unless some special dispensation takes the visitor to the Floor of the House of Representatives for a close-up study. The beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceilings of six committee rooms, one in the House extension and five in the Senate extension, can be seen only by special permission or by attendance at certain committee hearings.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ROOM

The frescoes in the House of Representatives Committee room, originally occupied at the time of execution by the Committee on Agriculture, were finished in 1855. This room displays two large crescent-shaped wall frescoes, referred to as “lunettes” by Brumidi—“The Calling of Cincinnatus from the Plow”, and “The Calling of Putnam from the Plow to the Revolution.” Two portrait heads in imitation sculpture adorn the other two walls of this room. Beneath the marble-like medallion head of Washington is a choice panel showing an American harvest scene of early date, while beneath the medallion head of Jefferson on the opposite wall is what was then a modern threshing scene, a golden field of grain being harvested by the new McCormick Reaper. The ceiling is light and gay and exquisite with designs representing Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The blues and golds and inimitable flesh tints of the entire room seem not to have faded one whit during the ninety years they have spread cheer and beauty about an otherwise sombre corner of the House extension of the Capitol.

In spite of all the beauty Brumidi painted into the old Capitol Building the Congressional Journal for those Brumidi years records occasional reference on the Floor of the House, criticizing the Italian artist and his work. In 1858 Congressman Lovejoy ridiculed in the House Chamber that “brilliant interpretation of the seasons” by Brumidi in his first frescoed ceiling decorated for the use of the House Agriculture Committee. Said Mr. Lovejoy in his Congressional speech,

“Overhead we have pictures of Bacchus, Ceres, and so on, surrounded with cupids,{14} cherubs, etc., to the end of heathen mythology. All this we have; but not a single specimen of the valuable breeds of cattle, horses, sheep, etc., which are now found in this country. In another panel, we have a company of harvesters with the sickle, which is well enough, only a quarter of a century too late. But worst of all, there is not a single picture to represent maize. A panel ought to have been given to this single production. It should have been represented in its different stages; as it emerges, weak and diminutive, from the ground, as it sways in its dark luxuriance of June and July; and then as it waves its tasseled crest, like the plumes of an armed host; and last as it stands in its rich golden maturity.”

We find Brumidi’s art defended, however, on the Floor of the House of Representatives about two years later, on June 15, 1860, by Mr. Curtis of Pennsylvania. Said Mr. Curtis,

“If you go into these committee rooms, and these galleries, of which we have heard so much, and take any honorable and fair-minded artist with you, he will himself do justice to the specimens of art that will be before him, and admit its distinguished worth. What, sir, can be more beautiful than the fresco work in the room of the Agricultural Committee?”

Hanging on the side of a bookcase today, in this House Committee Room, where Brumidi began his Capitol decorations, is a framed bit of verse put on display evidently by an admirer of the artist. This attempt to give poetic expression to the worth of Brumidi and his art was written by Horace C. Carlisle, a present employee of the Architect’s office of the Capitol. Seven such pieces of verse on Brumidi and his art, written by Mr. Carlisle, were placed in the Congressional Record by Congressman Sheppard of California, on April 7, 1944. The verses themselves are irregular but one line in the frame beneath Brumidi’s first American fresco is an immortal prophecy. Said Mr. Carlisle, concerning Brumidi and that first fresco in the Capitol Building:

In 1874 Brumidi himself referred to his first American fresco in a statement, “Relative to his employment at the Capitol,” which is now preserved in the Architect’s office. Said Brumidi, in part,

“The Committee Room on Agriculture in the south wing of the Capitol was painted in 1855 as the first specimen of real fresco introduced in America.

“In this connection can be mentioned a curious mistake common in this country, and that is the calling all and every decoration in oil, turpentine or glue that is put upon dry walls, real fresco.

“Fresco derives its name from fresh mortar, and is the immediate and rapid application of mineral colors diluted in water, to the fresh mortar just put upon the wall, thereby the colors are absorbed by the mortar during its freshness, and repeating this process in sections day by day, till the entire picture will be completed.

“This superior method is much admired in the celebrated works of the old masters, and is proper for historical subjects or classical ornamentations, like the Loggia of Raphael at the Vatican.”

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBER

A most revealing side light on the Cornwallis-Washington mural on the south wall of the House of Representatives Chamber, earlier referred to, is brought forth by an anonymous letter written on December 14,{15}

SPRING

One of four pleasing groups on the ceiling of the Old House Agriculture Committee Room is this Brumidi conception of spring. The four seasons on this ceiling make up Brumidi’s first fresco in the Capitol Building—painted in 1855. What appear to be sculptured figures and attached moldings surrounding the center panel in this picture are actually painted decorative borders on a flat surface. It was probably the tender hues of spring on this ceiling that led Congressman Curtis to say in 1860, “What, sir, can be more beautiful than the fresco work in the room of the Agriculture Committee?{16}”

1857, to Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, Superintendent of Construction, two days before the House met in its new “Hall of the House of Representatives.” The letter protesting this contract follows:

Since Captain Meigs could not reply directly to “Officious” he gave vent to his feelings by penning a note on the above letter. This note gives among other things an idea of the speed with which Brumidi was able to work under pressure. The note follows:

In 1859 a Congressional Committee voiced a criticism which undoubtedly refers also to the Cornwallis-Washington painting in the House Chamber. They said,

“Far greater sobriety should be given to these Halls in their general effect, so as to render them less distracting to the eye. Few are aware how disturbing to thought the display of gaudy, inharmonious colors can be made. This very quality renders such combination of colors unsuited to halls of deliberation where calm thought and unimpassioned reason are supposed to reside.”

Mr. Curtis of Pennsylvania rose again in the House of Representatives on June 15, 1860, in defense of Brumidi’s art but with special reference to the House fresco. Said he,

“I have heard with some regret appeals made to the prejudices of the country in regard to the specimens of art taste displayed about this Capitol; and I have been surprised that no one connected with this Branch of service has risen upon the Floor to do justice to those who have devoted their lives and energies to the embellishment of our public buildings. What is more splendid than the fresco in some of the halls and passages around the Senate Chamber and especially the emblem of Religion in the President’s

THE PRESIDENT’S ROOM

With its richness of design, its beauty and delicacy of color, the President’s Room represents Brumidi’s supreme effort “to make beautiful the Capitol” of the United States. Facing the portrait of Hamilton we see reflected in the giant golden mirror the portrait of Samuel Osgood. Reflected also are the ceiling frescoes of Vespucius and Religion and the treasured mahogany table at which Abraham Lincoln and many other Presidents have signed legislative bills. The mahogany clock at one time had hands of gold until a souvenir hunter carried them home. Today all sightseers get no further than a railing at the doorway.

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Room? And in this Hall, where do you find room to criticize the combination of colors which you see around you? It is easy to invent a popular criticism and find fault; but I would like to see some of these gentlemen who are so conversant with matters of taste and art as to speak with the assurance of masters, bring forward some design, some specimen from their superior genius that they would themselves insert in place of that which they see around them.”

PRESIDENT’S ROOM

The decoration of the President’s Room in the Senate Annex is thought by many to be Brumidi’s best work in the Capitol Building. Since the President’s Room in the Capitol was to be set aside for the use of the President of the United States at any time duty called the President to the Capitol Building, it may well be supposed that Brumidi wanted that room to be as beautiful as an artist could make it. He is said to have spent more than five years on this room alone, but five years seem not half long enough to create such beauty as is here displayed.

Five colorful ceiling-to-floor panels adorn the walls and in the center of each hangs a portrait elegantly framed. The five members of Washington’s first Cabinet are thus honored—Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Secretary of State; Edmund Randolph of Virginia, Attorney General; Henry Knox of Massachusetts, Secretary of War; Alexander Hamilton of New York, Secretary of the Treasury; and Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts, Postmaster General. I say these portraits hang in the panels. If you stood at the door looking hurriedly about the walls, as most visitors must do at the President’s Room, you would think the frames as real as the portraits. In truth, though, the beautifully carved frames are painted on the walls as are the portraits. Mr. Fairman calls these paintings, “Portraits of Distinction,” and so they are.

But it is the frescoed ceiling in the President’s Room that showers new light and color and added beauty about the portraits on the walls. Four symbolic groups on this ceiling look down from their large medallion gold leaf frames—four life-size Madonnas, symbolizing Religion, Legislation, Liberty, and Executive Authority—Madonnas of great beauty and rare coloring. Then at each corner of this frescoed ceiling among the symbolism and the cherubs are four life-size portraits, full length, each chosen as representative of a force in civilization. Columbus memorializes discovery; Vespucius, exploration; Brewster, religion; and Franklin, history.

The portrait of George Washington, evidently done with Rembrandt Peale’s Washington in mind, has a position all its own high above the portrait of Thomas Jefferson. A portion of the Annual Report of Captain Meigs, dated October 27, 1859, fixed the completion of the Brumidi frescoes in the President’s Room. Said that report, “The painting of the President’s Room in the North wing will be completed by the next meeting of Congress.”

Even during the years that Brumidi created the beauty of the President’s Room cruel words were hurled against his art. In 1858 a convention of self-styled American artists assembled and drew up an estimate of their own worth which they titled: “Memorial of the Artists of the United States.” This petition of grievance presented to the Congress of the United States carried the names of 127 individuals, chiefly from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore with only eight from the Capital City. Among the signatures were found the names of Rembrandt Peale, W. D. Washington and Johannes A. Oertel, the latter being the draughtsman who{19}

SINGING CHERUBS

These three cherubs occupy a position beneath the portrait of William Brewster on the ceiling of the President’s Room comparable to that of the cherub detail beneath the portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the same ceiling. Since Brewster, as the religious leader of the Pilgrims and elder of the Plymouth colony, typifies “Religion” in Brumidi’s over all design in the President’s Room, the singing cherubs with their director, violinist, dove attendant, and music script must be singing hosannas of peace and devotion. (Cherubs in chapter tailpieces are from this ceiling.)

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challenged Brumidi’s right, in 1858, to paint the ceiling fresco in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate.

It is illuminating to know that 88 of the 127 names listed as artists in the above Memorial do not even appear in the National Encyclopedia of American Biography while among those that do appear, less than a dozen are recognized today as artists of note.

The Artists’ Memorial began with these words, “Your memorialists appear before your honorable bodies to solicit for American art that consideration and encouragement to which they conceive it to be entitled at the hands of the general government.” Then the Memorial asked that Congress “establish an Art Commission composed of those designated by the united voice of American artists as competent to the office, who shall be accepted as the exponents of the authority and influence of American art, who shall be the channels for the distribution of all appropriations to be made by Congress for art purposes, and who shall secure to artists an intelligent and unbiased adjudication upon the designs they may present for the embellishment of our National buildings.”

The House of Representatives referred the Artists’ Memorial to a select committee of five. This Committee brought out Report No. 198, March 3, 1859. That Report not only sanctioned the establishment of the suggested Art Commission to protect the “embellishment of National buildings” but it voiced criticism by the Congressmen making up the select Committee of five. Brumidi’s name was not mentioned in the Report but there is no mistaking the artist to whom they referred. Said the Committee in this Report:

“A plain coat or two of whitewash is better, in the opinion of this committee, for a temporary finish than the tawdry and exuberant ornamentation with which many of the rooms and passages are being crowded.... An eagle and the National flag may be discovered occasionally amidst the confusion of scroll work and mythological figures presented to the eye; but the presence of conventional gods and goddesses, with meaningless scrolls and arabesques, albeit they may be wrapped in the red, white and blue, will never suggest to the American, as he wanders among the halls and committee rooms, any idea to touch his heart or to inspire his patriotism.... Should he seek an explanation from those who are manufacturing the cumbrous levities which everywhere appear through the building he will be eminently fortunate should he find among them one who speaks the English language.”

The real fight of the petitioners was evidently against the employment of a foreign artist. However, this was not expressed openly in the Memorial but the select committee of

DISCOVERY

The theme of Brumidi’s ceiling fresco in the President’s Room, as portrayed by Christopher Columbus, is that of “Discovery.” This subject is intensified by use of the globe and map in the cherub detail above the portrait. At upper left is a segment of the medallion, “Executive Authority,” and at the right a portion of another medallion, “Liberty.” The four small decorative medallions at the portrait corners are State seals. At the upper left is Vermont; at upper right, Kentucky; lower left, Arkansas, and lower right, Michigan.

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five from the House of Representatives made the open accusation. Said they in their Report, “The Committee have not been informed that American artists have been engaged upon the embellishment of the Capitol, but they have been made painfully conscious that the work has been prosecuted by foreign workmen under the immediate supervision of a foreigner. As a consequence the Committee find nothing in the design and execution of the ornamental work of the Capitol, thus far, which represents our own country, or the genius and taste of her artists.”

This unjust criticism of Brumidi found expression in the New York Daily Tribune for May 17, 1858, through that paper’s Washington correspondent. The New York attack on the artist, however, was answered in the Tribune for May 31, 1858, by Guglielmo Gajani, a friend of Brumidi’s. Extracts of this defense of Brumidi follow:

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RELIGION

Four Brumidi Madonnas on the frescoed ceiling of the President’s Room are of great interest to visitors. The most lasting impression, however, is made by “Religion.” The story is often repeated that Brumidi painted “Religion” with an “all-seeing eye of God” which will follow any individual from place to place inside the room. The “connections of the pieces of plaster” which help to identify real fresco are easily discernible in this medallion background. The color beauty of “Religion” is illustrated by “Legislation” in this book’s color section.

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THE CHERUB OF JUSTICE

Well balanced scales and a sword seem to be necessary attributes of Brumidi’s conception of “Executive Authority” in the President’s Room. The Cherub of Justice and the many other cherubs used so generously in the artist’s Capitol frescoes are favorites with art enthusiasts. All designs and deceptive moldings shown above are painted in oil on dry plaster. The corner of a tall elaborate mirror frame shows at the right.

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THE WINGED CHERUB

Resting midst bundles of papers, bills, and Congressional debates, the Winged Cherub suggests another Brumidi theme, “Legislation,” on the walls of the President’s Room. The signature “C. Brumidi, 1860,” can be identified on the packet of State papers at the feet of this cherub. The two cherubs on these pages fill decorative niches high on the walls on either side of a huge, ceiling-to-floor, gold-framed mirror.

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In the Architect’s Report for 1859 we find this reference to the detrimental influence of the Artist’s Memorial:

“The action of Congress in restricting the expenditure for painting and sculpture to the completion of the painting of rooms in the North Wing already partly done ... and to such paintings and sculpture as shall have been approved, first, by a committee of three American artists, to be appointed by the President and then by the Library Committee of Congress, has prevented the commencement of any new works.”

It seems certain, however, that Brumidi was not often continuously employed on any one picture. As shown by his vouchers, if work was held up in one direction he could easily employ himself in another. For example, he began work in the Senate Library in 1858 and the Architect of the Capitol records

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

This portrait of Alexander Hamilton is one of the five color representations of Washington’s Cabinet, painted by Brumidi on the walls of the President’s Room. The color and design of the frame and panel are equally as beautiful as those surrounding the portrait of Jefferson in the color section of this book. The portrait of George Washington high above those of his Cabinet evidently was done with that of Rembrandt Peale in mind. All others are thought to be Brumidi’s own conceptions.

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the finish of the Senate Library ceiling in 1875. But during those years the 4,664 square feet of fresco in the Canopy of the Dome was finished as well as the President’s Room and many committee room frescoes and hall decorations in the Senate Annex. References in Reports and letters usually give the finishing date of the fresco while the beginning date is seldom mentioned.

CAPITOL DOME

The huge fresco on the canopy of the Dome of the Capitol Building is signed “C. Brumidi, 1865.” In the Annual Report dated November 1, 1863, of Thomas Walter, Architect of the Capitol (1851-1865), we find this reference to the Dome canopy:

“The cartoons for the picture on the canopy over the eye of the inner dome are being prepared, and its execution will be commenced as soon as the iron work which is to receive it can be put in place.”

Certain letters in the National Archives between Brumidi and United States officials shed interesting light on the 1862 negotiations relative to the Dome Canopy. Extracts from these letters follow:

From Tho. U. Walter, “architect of extension and new Dome,” to Constantino Brumidi, August 18, 1862: “It is intended to have a picture 65 ft. in diameter painted in fresco on the concave canopy over the eye of the New Dome. I would thank you to furnish me with a design for the said picture at your earliest convenience.... You will also submit with the design an estimate of the cost of executing it in real fresco painted on the fresh mortar.”

From Constantino Brumidi to Tho. U. Walter, September 8, 1862. “...I herewith submit to you my design for the fresco picture to be painted on the Canopy of the New Dome of the United States Capitol. The six groups around the border represent, as you will see, War, Science, Navigation, Commerce, Manufacture and Agriculture. The leading figures will measure some 15 feet. In the center is an apotheosis of Washington surrounded by allegorical figures of eminent men of the times of Washington, which latter will be likenesses.

“As this picture will be seen at a height of 180 ft. the painting must be of the most decided character possible. It will cover 4664 sq. ft. and will be worth $50,000 to execute it including the necessary cartoons and every expense pertaining to the painting.”

From Tho. U. Walter to Constantino Brumidi, December 24, 1862. “Your letter of the 8th of September was duly received, together with your design for the proposed picture in fresco, for the canopy over the eye of the New Dome of the United States Capitol. The design meets my entire approval. It has also the approval of Major B. B. French, the Commissioner of Public Buildings. I sent it to the residence of the Hon. Caleb B. Smith, the Secretary of the Interior, where it has been for several weeks. Mr. Smith also expresses himself entirely satisfied with the design. I am therefore free to give it my official approval with but one condition and that is that you will consent to execute it at a greatly reduced cost.

“I am aware, as you have expressed to me in conversation that there is no picture in the world that will compare with this in magnitude and in difficulty of execution, being painted on a concave surface, and I am also aware that it covers about eight times more surface than Mr. Lentze’s picture which cost $20,000. But in view of the exigencies of the times I do not consider that we would be justified in expending so large a sum as $50,000.

“Should you execute this work it will be the great work of your life: it will therefore{29} be worth on your part some sacrifice to accomplish so great an achievement....”

From Constantino Brumidi to Tho. U. Walter, December 27, 1862: “...I have come to the conclusion to expedite a settlement as to the price of the painting to be executed on the canopy over the eye of the Dome of the United States Capitol by reducing my offer to $40,000, which is lower, considering the subject, the curved form of the surface on which it is to be painted and the square feet of painting it contains than any real fresco picture ever painted....”

From Tho. U. Walter to B. B. French, “Distributing Agent of United States Capitol,” December 29, 1862: “...I consider the price ($40,000) exceedingly low in view of the fact that it contains 4664 square feet, that it is all to be painted on a curved surface, and that Mr. Brumidi is the only real fresco painter in this country capable of executing the work. The design is probably the grandest and most imposing that has ever been executed in the world and Mr. Brumidi has proved by his real frescoes in the Capitol extension (all of which were painted by his own hand) that he is fully equal to the task. The grandeur of this picture, the great distance at which it will be seen, and the peculiarity of its light will render it intensely imposing.”

From B. B. French to Tho. U. Walter, January 5, 1863: “...as there is confessedly no artist in the United States, capable of executing a real fresco painting as it should be done, especially so important a work as the one in contemplation, except Mr. Brumidi, and, as we know from experience his excellence in that art, I do not see how we can do otherwise than employ him....”

From Tho. U. Walter to Constantino Brumidi, March 11, 1863. “...I have the honor to inform you that your design for painting the Canopy over the eye of the aforesaid new Dome is adopted. And, inasmuch as Congress has made the appropriation for the completion of that work you are hereby authorized to proceed at once with the aforesaid canopy painting....”

Two letters, one from the Department of the Interior to the Capitol Dispensing Agent and the other from the Architect of the Capitol to the Department of the Interior should be quoted at this time as they verify amounts paid the artist and the length of time used in the actual painting of the Dome canopy.

From J. P. Usher, Secretary of Interior, dated Nov. 6, 1863.

“...$10,000, one fourth the entire cost of the work (for painting the canopy over the eye of the new dome of the Capitol in real fresco), has already been paid to Mr. Brumidi. I am of the opinion that the progress which has been made does not justify any further payments at present. You will therefore suspend any advances to Mr. Brumidi until further orders.”

From Thomas U. Walter, Architect U. S. Capitol, dated December 3, 1864.

“As the canopy for the picture over the eye of the new dome is ready for Mr. Brumidi and as he is now about to commence to work, I deem it proper to say that he has not received any payment on account of his contract since November 6, 1863, and that in the interim he has been occupied in perfecting the full-size cartoons, which are now ready for the work. I, therefore, respectfully recommend that payments to him be resumed in accordance with his contract and that they be continued as the work progresses until he shall have received the aggregate sum of $30,000, after which no further payments to be made until the work is completed and approved.”

In the Annual Report dated November 1, 1865, of Edward Clark, Architect of the Capi{30}tol (1865-1902), we find reference to the completion of the canopy:

“The picture over the eye of the Dome is all painted in, but the artist is unwilling to have the scaffolding removed until the plastering is thoroughly dry and the picture toned. As it will at times be viewed by gas light, he wishes to have the opportunity of trying it by this light before dismissing it from his hands.”

The following report by Edward Clark written in longhand to the Secretary of the Interior and dated November 1, 1866, is preserved in the National Archives:

“The fresco picture over the eye of the Dome has been exposed to view by taking away the scaffolding. It is not, however, finished as the artist intends to soften down the harshness at the joinings of the plastering. He was under the impression that these imperfections would disappear when the surface became dry. He holds himself in readiness to do the proper toning and blending whenever the scaffolding is in place for the painting of vault of the Rotunda.

“I would call attention to the necessity of ornamenting the ‘Belt’ between the second and third cornices of the Rotunda. The original intention was to enrich this member in basso-relievo, but it is deemed advisable to have it painted in fresco in imitation of basso-relievo. Mr. Brumidi has submitted a design for its embellishment in this manner consisting of a series of natural pictures arranged in a chronological order. It is hoped this subject may receive attention, and that his design may be adapted or modified or other designs invited for this decoration from artists of acknowledged merit.”

Brumidi was sixty years old at the completion of this Dome Canopy. He had made 4,664 square feet of fresco in eleven months’ time on the inner surface of the Capitol’s Dome. This Canopy is 65 feet in diameter, has a concavity of 21 feet and displays its heroic figures as life-size from the floor of the Rotunda, 180 feet below.

The artist called this painting on the Dome canopy “The Apotheosis of Washington.” The outstanding figure is that of our first President attended by Liberty and Victory. Circling the center of the canopy are thirteen female figures in draperies of pastel beauty, bearing a ribbon-like banner which displays our treasured motto, “E Pluribus Unum.” The colors increase in brilliance and depth toward the outer borders of the canopy, blending finally into the intense hues of the six heroic groups about the base.

In these groups we find Minerva, Goddess of Arts and Sciences, as the center of her allegorical group; Ceres, of Agriculture; Mercury, messenger of the Gods, symbolizing Commerce; Vulcan, the God of Mechanics; Neptune, God of the Marine, and Armed Liberty with shield and sword, symbolizing War.

S. D. Wyeth says, “The fresco of Brumidi (on the canopy of the Dome) arrests the gaze as though the sky had opened and it were permitted to look into the beyond.” Wyeth, later, in referring to the same Dome canopy described it in this way: “Clouds of gold, azure and rose seem hanging there spanned by a rainbow, and, floating among them, forms of exquisite beauty. Grand mythological figures, symbolizing Force and Progress, appear there too, titanic, majestic—almost appalling with their great significance.”

A letter from Architect Clark to Artist Brumidi, dated September 18, 1865, should be quoted in order to appreciate Brumidi’s reply one day later:

“I learned in an interview with the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, this morning, that he was very anxious to have the picture{31} over the eye of the Dome finished if possible by the meeting of Congress.

“You informed me when I first saw the work in relation to your July bill, that it was your intention to get it done by that time, and I was surprised to hear from you on Saturday morning last, that this was not likely to be done. You stated that you were unwilling to have the scaffoldings taken away before you had the advantage of trying it by gas light. In this you are certainly right, and I have to inform you that arrangements can be made to give you light whenever you need it.

“Please reply as to when it is likely you will have the picture done.”

Brumidi’s reply in which he tells of the final touches to this huge fresco is still preserved. In this letter the old artist’s concern for the proper finishing and lighting of his masterpiece is uppermost in his thought. The letter follows:

Apparently negotiations with Brumidi for painting the Dome fresco began with the letter from Tho. U. Walter, “architect of extension and new Dome,” dated August 18, 1862. Brumidi was authorized to proceed on March 11, 1863. On December 3, 1864, Tho. U. Walter wrote that the canopy for the picture over the eye of the Dome was ready for the artist and that Mr. Brumidi was “about to commence to work.” On November 1, 1865, Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol, reported that the picture over the eye of the Dome was all painted in but that Mr. Brumidi was unwilling to have the scaffolding removed until the plastering was thoroughly dry and the colors had no more “changement.”

On January 9, 1866, Edward Clark wrote{32} the following letter to James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior:

“I have the honor to state that we are now making preparations to take down the scaffolding over the eye of the Dome to reveal Brumidi’s picture. It becomes necessary to have some canvas, or other strong material to place under the scaffolding to catch the dirt, etc., that would otherwise fall to the floor of the Rotunda which might cause inconvenience, perhaps accident.

“It is possible that some old sails might be borrowed from the Navy Yard for that purpose, and I therefore respectfully ask that you make a request to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy for the loan of such as may be necessary for this purpose which will be returned as soon as this work is done.”

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE ROOMS

On the walls of the Senate Military Committee Room—now one of the Committee Rooms on Senate Appropriations—are to be found five large frescoes, lunettes in shape, depicting scenes from American history. These pictures are filled with action and American atmosphere and could have been painted only by a lover of American liberty. The artist gave these titles to his five American lunettes: “Boston Massacre,” “Battle of Lexington,” “Death of General Wooster,” “Storming of Stony Point,” and “Washington at Valley Forge.”

The frescoed ceiling in this Senate Committee Room is conventional in design with victors’ wreaths, shields and other emblems of war predominating. Here we have such outstanding color combinations as to lead many Brumidi enthusiasts to vote this ceiling the Capitol’s best. In this room also are six outstanding panels, rich in color and different in design, displaying American arms of different periods. Never were guns, pistols, sabers, tomahawks, and flintlock rifles displayed with so much beauty and elegance—and the sword across the shield in the center is said to be a copy of one owned by Washington. (Keim attributes these panels to another Capitol artist.)

The north room used by the Senate Committee on Appropriations was decorated for the old Senate Committee on Naval Affairs. The design is that of a Pompeian fresco with marine gods and goddesses scattered about the ceiling and with ancient porticoes and antique vessels adorning the walls. Nine panels in oil with symbolic womanly figures in flowing robes against dark blue backgrounds to represent various attributes of the Navy finish the wall decorations.

On February 24, 1880, Senator Voorhees of Indiana referred to the Brumidi decorations of these two rooms in these words:

“Almost every committee-room announces to the eye by historical or allegorical paintings in fresco the duties to which it is dedicated. Who ever passed through the room of the Committee on Military Affairs without feeling that the very genius of heroism had left there its immortal inspirations? Who would mistake in after ages the use to which the room for the Committee on Naval Affairs had been devoted? The painter has told the whole story in a silent but in an undying language.”

An 1858 newspaper tells that the following statement was posted that year in the Senate Committee Room on Naval Affairs for the “edification of visitors”:

“Senate Committee on Naval Affairs—The decorative paintings of this room are a specimen of the manner in which the ancient Greeks and Romans ornamented their splendid buildings, some of which are still extant in the precious monuments of Pompeii and{33} the baths of Titus. America with the sea divinities are painted on the ceiling in real fresco. These mythological figures are delineated agreeably to the poetical descriptions we have received of them, and they are Neptune, the god of the seas, Amphitrite, his wife, Aeolus keeping the winds chained to the rocks, Venus the daughter of the Sea, Oceanus with crampfish claws on his head, Thetis, his wife, and Nereus, the father of the Nereids, drawn by Glacus, and the Tritons by marine horses or swans, or else mounted as sea-monsters.”

SENATE RECEPTION ROOM

Brumidi decorated also the reception room of the Senate where constituents may still call upon their Senators—and admire the ceiling frescoes of the old artist. This room has a vaulted ceiling with two arches. The circular arch has a frescoed center of children and clouds with allegorical groupings about the center designed to represent Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Strength portrayed as beautiful madonnas with pink cheeked children. Four allegorical scenes in the groined arch hold forth Liberty, Plenty, War, and Peace, in the purity of other madonna-like groupings.

The walls of the Senate Reception Room have many empty and unfinished panels but the “elaborate ornaments and gilded mouldings around them” lend their own beauty to this room. The outstanding Brumidi work in the Senate Reception Room is a large centerpiece in oil on the south wall showing George Washington in consultation with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. At either side, according to Brumidi, are “decorative figures in light and shade (chiaroscuro).” The old voucher of 1873, signed by Brumidi, and indicating the sum paid for this mural in the Senate Reception Room, follows:

Two of the Brumidi letters written in 1871 not only date the frescoes in the Senate Reception Room and those in the Military Committee Room of the Senate already described, but also name a lump sum paid the artist for at least a part of this work. These two letters written to the Architect of the Capitol Building and dated 1871 follow:

The 1871 letter quoted above, written from New York, is the only reference in a Brumidi letter of the Brumidi file in the Architect’s office to any painting of Brumidi’s outside of Washington. It seems to have been proven, though, beyond a doubt that The Crucifixion in St. Stephen’s Church in New York is one of at least four such sacred paintings. The picture of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was painted in the Philadelphia Cathedral; The Holy Trinity was done in the Cathedral at Mexico City, and The First Communion of Saint Aloysius was placed above the altar in the old Saint Aloysius Church in Washington.

A study of the Saint Aloysius mural brought to light a letter written by Brumidi in Italian to Father Sestini of Georgetown University back in 1855. Father Sestini is said to have been such a close friend of Brumidi’s that the artist included the Father in his fresco of St. Aloysius. This letter to Father Sestini, translated by Father Geib of Georgetown University, is reproduced in its entirety, it being the only communication found from Brumidi to a Father in the Catholic Church. The letter to Father Sestini follows:

A certain anonymous letter from the Brumidi file in the Architect’s office at the Capitol should be quoted at this time. It was written on April 8, 1857, addressed to Mr. Walter, Architect of the Capitol, and shows Brumidi the target for more criticism. This crude and biased letter is quoted in full:

MAIDENS OF THE NAVY

The unrolled map of ocean shoreline, the compass, and the telescope carried by the Maidens of the Navy, advance the naval theme in the old Senate Committee Room on Naval Affairs. Seven other such panels of exquisite design and color complete the wall decorations of this room. The simulated pillars with seaweed carvings and pearl ornaments are as deceptive as the sea shell cornucopias on the ledge at the pillars’ base. All are painted in oil on a flat surface of dry plaster.

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“The protegé and a kind of informer of Cap’t. Meigs, an Italian painter, Brumidi, paid $6 daily by Government, did three pictures for the churches of New York and in Georgetown and for which he received a good pay in hours and during the time which he had no right to dispose of.... His friend is paid too for the thing that he does not understand nor he attends to, yet all this is allowed and tolerated. What do you say about it? Shall we make public notice in papers or will you attend to it?”

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ROOM

Brumidi painted four large, bronze-colored medallions on the walls of this room, each medallion recording the profile of a noted chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

On the north wall is Henry Clay of Kentucky who served the Committee as chairman from 1834 to 1836. On the south wall is William S. Allen of Ohio, Committee chairman from 1845 to 1846. The east wall portrays Simon E. Cameron of Pennsylvania, who was chairman from 1871 to 1877, while on the west wall is Charles W. Sumner of Massachusetts, chairman from 1861 to 1871.

The voucher paying Brumidi for this work, dated June 21, 1874, reads as follows:

“For painting four medallion portraits in the Committee Room of Foreign Affairs, United States Senate, @ $50 each—$200.”

SENATE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE ROOMS

Two of these Senate Annex rooms, the District of Columbia Committee Rooms, have unusual frescoed ceilings—that of the larger room being equal in workmanship to that of the President’s Room. Since this large Committee Room was originally set apart as a Senate Library the groupings were chosen with that in mind, for there the artist has represented Geography, History, Physics, and Telegraph. In each group is the Brumidi Madonna and the artist’s distinctive cherubs. The walls of this room were never finished but the ceiling colors are as brilliant today as though painted yesterday.

In the files of the Architect of the Capitol is to be found a collection of original Brumidi letters. Among these are two referring to the Library decorations, both written in 1858—one by a draughtsman, Johannes Oertel, to Mr. Brumidi, and one by Mr. Brumidi to Captain Meigs, then superintendent of Capitol construction. The old artist apparently bothered not to answer ridicule and art criticism but a “direct reproach” on the discharge of his duty did not go unchallenged. The two letters follow:

From Mr. Oertel to Mr. Brumidi:

“With much surprise I learned that last Saturday you had commenced to paint the ceiling at the Senate Library. This room, as you are aware, was assigned to me by Capt. Meigs. I had consequently made preparation to begin it, and have spent much time in doing so. The work is now useless, and my labor in vain.

“Common courtesy should have induced you to consult me before beginning yourself. I cannot conceive the propriety of your taking work out of my hands, to which by commission I was fairly entitled. I must regard it as an unjust interference with my rights, which rights I shall endeavor in the future to guard from invasion.”

From Mr. Brumidi to Capt. Meigs:

“On the 26th of April 1858, I received from Mr. Oertel the enclosed letter, which is very remarkable for the injurious sentiments it contains.

“I remember very well our conversation{37}

HISTORY

This Brumidi color lunette in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate, a part of that room’s frescoed ceiling, was given the name “History” by the artist. All paintings in this room were done with the thought of a decorative motif for a Senate Library. The allegory in this lunette might suggest Young America writing her history, confident and undisturbed either by war or time. If this room has a Brumidi signature it has not yet been found.

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that you had invited a draughtsman to come to Washington to help me with my cartoons. Some days after, in the beginning of last year (1857), Mr. Oertel presented himself and told me he was the artist intended to assist me with my designs. I inquired of him if he could paint. He answered no, that he was only a draughtsman. In proof of this assertion he showed to me an oil painting of small dimension, representing the head of St. Paul. Such was his only experiment in coloring.

“After this I gave him the measure of six circles on the pilasters in the Navy Room, to make a corresponding number of portraits of celebrated men in the American Navy, intending to paint them myself. After that day I did not again see Mr. Oertel, because he had received orders from you to make the designs for the stained glass in the House of Representatives. In consequence of which order I could not have his services. I have never yet received the designs for the aforesaid portraits, therefore, I made them myself, also the cartoons for my other work, intending to execute them when the weather was favorable.

“Not being able to work in the room of the Committee of War, as it is at present occupied, nor in the ante-chamber of the Senate as there are many workmen employed there, I commenced in the Senate Library not having received any information that the frescoes there were intended for Mr. Oertel nor could I think that an artist who himself has confessed that he had no practice in painting could think of executing pictures in fresco which is undoubtedly the most difficult of all varieties of painting.

“If for about fifteen months Mr. Oertel had been under your immediate orders, I could not again employ him without a new order from you, notwithstanding I have only painted one panel in the Library, and if you desire that Mr. Oertel shall make his first experiment in fresco in the aforesaid room, there still remain three vacant panels.

“In everything concerning the work in the Capitol Extension, it is my duty to receive orders and whatsoever observations may be needed only from you. So that I pray you please to make known to Mr. Oertel that neither he nor any other person has authority to send me such an insolent letter, containing as it does a direct reproach on the discharge of my duty, and I consider he has done me a serious injury.”

Although this Senate Library was begun by Brumidi in 1858 it would seem that only one lunette was finished at that time and that negotiations for its completion were again resumed on August 12, 1866, when Mr. Brumidi wrote the following letter to Architect Clark itemizing the completion costs:

“...The three panels in the ceiling, painted in real fresco representing allegorical subjects, corresponding to the original plan, and to the other already painted by myself, for $1,500 each, making an amount of $4,500—and 500 dollars more for painting all the figures and ornaments in the same ceiling in correspondence with the others, making a total cost of $5,000.

“The enclosed account at the old price of daily wages was presented by me to put under consideration what would have been the cost of the work if it had been completed six years ago. The mentioned persons, Peruchi and Geier were employed expressly one to help me as an artist, and the other to serve me in preparing the cartoons, the colors, and to assist me in my private studio as well as in the Capitol, and they having nothing to do with the plasterer who fixes the mortar in the wall, always furnished by the government.”

Architect Clark’s reply a few days later was short and to the point, “I do not consider{39} there is three times as much to do as has already been done.”

Brumidi painted in the Capitol Building throughout the entire war between the States. In the little ante-room of the Senate District of Columbia Committee Room, originally the office of the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, is his only effort to picture that conflict. This small room has four allegorical designs painted about its upper walls and one large fresco in the center of the ceiling. This fresco is signed, “C. Brumidi, 1876,” and represents “Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union.”

On the east wall is “Secession”—the breaking of the fasces, and the rival products of the North and South; on the south wall is war and strife; on the north wall the implements of war are exchanged for those of peace, while on the west wall the fasces are again united with the words “E Pluribus Unum.”

These two Senate Committee Rooms present a great contrast in brilliancy of color. The somber tone of the smaller room might be due to its date of execution, it having been finished only four years before the artist’s death. The larger room is said to have had a bit of restoration at one time during the two restoration periods that some of the Brumidi frescoes have had in the Capitol.

Charles Ayer Whipple was employed in 1919 to restore some of the Brumidi paintings especially in the basement corridors in the Senate Annex. This artist is recorded to have said at that time, “The Brumidi decorations are second to none in the whole world.” In 1921 Charles E. Moberly also did some restoration of Brumidi paintings but his work was chiefly in the House Committee Room where a fire had marred the side walls, and in the Reception room of the Senate where a bomb explosion in the early days of World War I damaged the walls and ceiling.

GROUND FLOOR CORRIDORS SENATE EXTENSION

The Senate Appropriations Committee Rooms earlier referred to are entered from the West Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension. Above the door leading into these Committee Rooms is the Brumidi fresco of Bellona, the Roman goddess of War, with her stacked guns, flag-draped cannon and silent drum and trumpets at her feet. This West Corridor with vaulted ceiling is elaborately decorated in 15th Century style, thought to have been inspired by the Loggia of Raphael in the Vatican at Rome, that portion of the Vatican at one time said to have been restored by Brumidi. In the Capitol’s West Corridor are studies of birds, butterflies and children. Among the humming birds, cardinals, bluejays, and robins are 13 exquisite landscapes and inimitable medallion profiles of John Hancock, Francis Hopkinson, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Charles Thompson, Charles Carroll and Robert Morris. In a special ceiling design are the twelve signs of the zodiac in fields of Pompeian blue.

Senator Voorhees made the following appreciative reference to Brumidi’s West Corridor designs:

“The poetry of the artist, if I may so express it, had also its field of display. To one who recalls the great forests of the West before they were swept away, the birds and the specimens of American animals with which he has adorned a portion of this Capitol must be a source of unceasing enjoyment. The birds especially are all there, from the humming-bird at an open flower to the bald eagle with his fiery eye and angry feathers. I have been told that the aged artist loved these birds as a father loves his children and that he often lingered in their midst as if a strong tie bound him to them.{40}”

The North Corridor is equally as colorful as the West Corridor. Here we find painted on the walls, parrots and quail, lizards and chipmunks, squirrels and mice in their own habitat and color, midst every kind of flower and fruit imaginable. Children dance about the trailing arbutus, lilies of the valley, morning glories, columbine, bleeding hearts and peonies. Panels adorned with clusters and baskets of fruit—purple grapes, pineapples, peaches, plums, currants and cherries help to frame medallion profiles of Daniel Morgan, Jonathan Trumbull, Horatio Gates, Israel Putnam, Thomas Mifflin, Silas Deane, Richard Montgomery, Joseph Warren, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

In this corridor also are two large frescoes above other Committee room doors. “The Cession of Louisiana,” picturing Livingston, Monroe and Barbe-Marbois in the act of negotiating the Louisiana purchase, is at the west end of this corridor. At the east end of this corridor is “The Signing of the First Treaty of Peace with Great Britain in 1782” in which likenesses of Richard Oswald, John Adams, Henry Laurens, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin are portrayed.

A voucher, signed by Brumidi, and dated November 11, 1874, has been found referring to this treaty picture:

“For painting in Fresco over the entrance of the room of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, the picture of the Signing of the First Treaty with Great Britain—$600.”

On the upper walls of the Patent Corridor at the extreme east end of the North Corridor are large frescoes of Fulton and his invention on the Hudson, Fitch working on a steamboat model, and Franklin in his laboratory, while the ceiling displays many small designs of patents important to the American people. Roses of all colors, conventionalized or in tall graceful vases, predominate in this corridor decoration. Brumidi is reported to have said that his “Palisades of the Hudson” in the Robert Fulton fresco were not strong enough in perspective and that he hoped some day to have time to strengthen that portion of his painting.

A Brumidi voucher dated November 28, 1873, helps to verify the fact that the Fulton painting is a fresco:

“For painting in fresco the picture of Robert Fulton in the Senate wing, in the passage in front of the room of the Committee on Patents—$500.”

The Main Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension is said to follow the Byzantine style of decoration with subdued backgrounds that display to perfection 14 more oval-shaped landscapes of marvelous depth and beauty. At the extreme north end of the corridor are the profile portraits of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, large frescoes of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent and a bust of Chancellor Livingstone executed in imitation sculpture.

THREE GRACES

Four such groups of Graces in varying attitudes and color combinations are used by Brumidi as corner motives on the frescoed ceiling of the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate. So delicately beautiful are the pastel shades in the maidens’ drapery that the studies of graces are equally as popular as the lunettes which they separate. Again, all frames and intricate moldings are painted on a smooth ceiling surface. The working sketch for these Graces is reproduced in black and white on page 79.

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Two vouchers signed by Brumidi and dated August 24, 1874, fix the date, price and style of painting in the north end of this main corridor:

“For painting bust in light and shade of Chancellor Livingston at north end of basement story—$100.”

“For painting in fresco the portraits of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent at north end of basement story—$400.”

There is also a South Corridor on this ground floor of the Senate Extension done in the same subdued Byzantine style with eight large studies of animals in oval frames painted in oil on the walls and eight other ovals of the same size displaying in each the United States shield.

Two facts concerning Brumidi disturb us at this point in some such way as Smith D. Fry evidently was disturbed back in 1912 when he wrote his “Story of the Capitol.” Mr. Fry apparently satisfied his own wonder in these words:

“Many people inquire how it was possible for Brumidi to accomplish such an enormous amount of art work. The great designer and decorator prepared his colors according to methods known only to himself. They were mixed or triturated by employees under Brumidi’s direction. Leslie and others covered the walls with backgrounds, under Brumidi’s direction. Other near artists made outlines, according to directions of the tireless worker. But all of the artistic work was finished by the hand of the matchless Brumidi himself. That the name of Brumidi and the story of his wonderful work have not been known to the American people is not due to lack of appreciation but to the fact that there has been no one with time and acquaintance with his work to tell the people about it.”

CAPITOL ROTUNDA

On the frieze of the Rotunda Brumidi did his last work in the Capitol Building. This frieze is a belt nine feet wide which circles the Rotunda 58 feet from the floor. The Rotunda is 300 feet in circumference. On October 1, 1877, the Architect of the Capitol gave the following report, “The belt of the Rotunda intended to be enriched with basso relievos is being embellished in real fresco representing in light and shadow events in our history arranged in chronological order, begining with the Landing of Columbus and ending with a period of our Revolutionary history to be decided later.”

According to Brumidi’s signed statement of 1874, earlier quoted, “That large frieze in the Rotunda was sketched by order of Captain Meigs before the war,” but the artist was 72 years old before he actually was allowed to begin painting the frieze in the difficult Rotunda location.

He had in mind fifteen historical scenes planned to cover fifteen divisions of the frieze and from his file of letters we know how desperately he worked to finish these frescoes before sickness should compel him to lay aside his brush. The following four short letters to the Architect of the Capitol during Brumidi’s last months show the heroic effort made by the artist to complete his frieze:

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WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE

Another lunette painted by Brumidi high on the walls of the old Senate Committee Room on Military Affairs was named by Brumidi, “Washington at Valley Forge.” This portrayal of our Revolutionary General was evidently painted with these words of Washington in mind: “We have this day no less than 2,873 men in camp unfit for duty because they are barefooted and otherwise naked ... numbers are still obliged to sit all night by fires.” (December 23, 1777.) Could the two soldiers with Washington be Brumidi’s conception of Baron Steuben and Lafayette?

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LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS

Of the fifteen historical groups planned by Brumidi for the frescoed frieze encircling the Rotunda, the “Landing of the Pilgrims” is the one in which the attitude of prayer predominates. This frieze is 9 feet wide and 58 feet from the Rotunda floor. Brumidi was 72 years old when he began its execution but he had drawn the plans probably twenty years earlier.

But this last task he set for himself was too great. Of the fifteen scenes Brumidi planned, he finished the following six: Landing of Columbus, 1492; Entry of Cortez into Mexico, 1521; Pizarro’s Conquest of Peru, 1533;{45} Midnight Burial of DeSoto, 1541; Pocahontas saving John Smith, 1606; Landing of the Pilgrims, 1620.

PENN’S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS

The seventh group, chronologically, on the Rotunda frieze is “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians.” It follows the “Landing of the Pilgrims” in Brumidi’s design. It was while working on this group that Brumidi fell on the scaffolding and was never able to return. The three Indians at the right were left unfinished, the lighter background marking the spot from which Brumidi fell.

The artist had the seventh scene, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, 1682, more than half finished when he fell from the suspended chair from which he worked and was forced to hang by his arms from a ladder until workmen made the rescue. The last few months of his life he worked at his studio on the frieze cartoons. Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol, makes reference to the unfinished frieze in his Report of October 1, 1880. Said he at that time, “But little progress has been made on the frescoes of the belt in the Dome, owing to the illness and death of the late Constantino Brumidi. Philip Costaggini, an artist of acknowledged merit, educated in the same school as the former artist, is now engaged on these frescoes.” One year later, however, on October 1, 1881, Mr. Clark made the following report:

“Mr. Costaggini has painted in fresco on the belt of the Rotunda the “Settlement of New England,” “Oglethorpe and the Indians,” left unfinished by Mr. Brumidi, and he is now engaged on the “Reading of the Declaration of Independence.” It is proper to state here, that Mr. Brumidi made the designs for these sections only in small size and Mr. Costaggini has had to make the eight remaining full size cartoons.”

When Mr. Costaggini finished the work of executing the Brumidi designs on the Rotunda frieze he had space enough left to accommodate two compositions of his own choosing. Since his designs were never sanctioned by Congress, Mr. Costaggini died in 1907 leaving an unfinished frieze.

A third artist, Charles Ayer Whipple, was{46} employed in 1918 at daily wages to restore some of Brumidi’s paintings on the walls of the Ground Floor Corridors at the Capitol and to make a sample painting on the unfinished frieze. This trial painting he called “The Spirit of 1917.” The Committee charged with final decisions concerning the frieze at that time decided against Whipple’s further effort.

In 1925 Mr. Whipple referred to his frieze painting in a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, a portion of which follows:

“As you know I painted a group of figures in the frieze with the permission of the Library Committee, to prove that I understood the ancient method of Fresco painting, that is, the method of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The frieze is painted in that method and of course must be completed in the mode of the great Italian Master, that of “lime painting on wet plaster.” Mr. Whipple died in 1928. The frieze is still unfinished and still of current interest.

On August 17, 1950, the President of the United States signed a Joint Resolution, H. J. Res. 21, “To provide for the utilization of the unfinished portion of the historical frieze in the Rotunda of the Capitol to portray (1) the Civil War, (2) the Spanish-American War, and (3) the birth of aviation in the United States.”

Each new effort to finish the Rotunda Frieze is a testimony to the artist, Brumidi, and to his inimitable work. Should an artist well schooled in the Italian fresco process not be found to finish the frieze it is the author’s thought that the problem might be solved by adorning the blank portion of the Rotunda belt with a memorial inscription to Constantino Brumidi.

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Color Reproductions

OF

Brumidi Frescoes

in the United States Capitol

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BRUMIDI’S FRESCOED CANOPY IN THE EYE OF THE DOME

The Dome Canopy as here pictured was photographed from the exact center of the Rotunda, 180 feet below. Unavoidably, the balcony around the Eye of the Dome hides the outer portion of all six allegorical groups. In order to make individual “close-ups” of these groups our photographer went to the top balcony of the Dome at night, carrying his own lighting equipment. His six kodachromes, each made at a distance of 65 feet, the diameter of the Dome at this point, follow:

(S. D. Wyeth’s six-page booklet, printed in 1866, gives the “Description of Brumidi’s Allegorical Painting within the Canopy of the Rotunda.” Since Brumidi finished this canopy in 1865 we may reasonably suppose that Wyeth’s interpretations came directly from the artist. For this reason Wyeth’s own legends are quoted on the following six pages.)

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AGRICULTURE

“CERES, the Goddess of Harvests and the Fields, with the Horn of Plenty, is in the center. Young America, with Liberty Cap, of red, the bonnet rouge of France, having under his control a pair of vigorous horses hitched to an American Reaper, in conscious pride is exhibiting his skill. The background is a luxuriant mass of prolific vegetation. Flora is gathering flowers, and, hovering near, is a cherub. Beyond is Pomona with a basket of fruit.”

Wyeth—1866

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MECHANICS

“VULCAN, the old stalwart Tubal Cain of Grecian mythology, is the colossal genius of this group. His right foot rests on a cannon. Machinery, forges, mortars, and cannon balls, strewn around, remind us of forging thunderbolts, as well as of combat with, and victory over, the giant forces of nature, and making them subservient to human will and purposes.”

Wyeth—1866

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COMMERCE

“MERCURY, the Protector of Travellers and Merchants, holds in his hand a bag of gold, to which he is directing the attention of Robert Morris, the Financier of the American Revolution. It was he who guided to a successful issue the entangled pecuniary embarrassments of our country in its struggle for independence. Alas! for himself, he died a bankrupt, and in confinement for debt. Boxes of merchandise, and bales of goods, with men at work among them, are to be seen. Two sailors point to a gunboat in the distance.”—Wyeth—1866

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MARINE

“NEPTUNE, in marine state, bearing his trident, in his car, accompanied by his charioteer and attendants, is emerging astonished from the deep. The beautiful Aphrodite (Venus), born of the sea foam, half risen from the waves, holds in her hand the Atlantic cable, given her by a winged cherub, and is about dropping it into the sea.”—Wyeth—1866

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ARTS AND SCIENCES

“MINERVA, the Goddess of Wisdom, stands gloriously prominent, with helmet and spear, as she springs, full grown, from the brain of Jupiter. In meek attitudes, but with glowing faces, attentive to her teachings, are Benjamin Franklin, Printer and Philosopher, Robert Fulton, of Steamboat renown, and S. F. B. Morse, the generally acknowledged inventor of the Magnetic Telegraph. There are also boys, with wondering eyes, and expressive gestures, listening to the instructions of a school teacher.”—Wyeth—1866

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WAR

“FREEDOM, terrible in vengeance, with upraised sword, is striking down Tyranny and Kingly Power. They are overcome, and flee from her wrath in dismay; with them is Anger, and also Vengeance and Discord bearing the incendiary torch. An angry Eagle, striking with his beak, is fighting for, and by the side of, Freedom.”

“WASHINGTON, the Savior of his Country, apotheosized, appears seated in majesty. On his right is the Goddess of Liberty, and on his left is a winged idealization of Victory and Fame, sounding a trumpet, and in triumph displaying the victor’s palm. Forming a semicircle are thirteen female figures, representing the thirteen States.”—Wyeth—1866

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

Of the five portraits in color of Washington’s first cabinet, painted by Brumidi on the walls of the President’s room, that of Thomas Jefferson is considered by many to be the most lifelike. Brumidi gave Jefferson the favored location beneath the portrait of George Washington, thus bestowing honor on the Secretary of State, the highest ranking Cabinet officer. The delicate graceful carvings of the picture frame are another Brumidi delusion. Both the portrait and the frame are painted in oil on dry plaster. Mr. Fairman suggests that there is enough resemblance between the Brumidi Jefferson and the Trumbull Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda “upon which to base a theory that Brumidi was at least influenced by the work of Trumbull.{58}{57}”

WASHINGTON-JEFFERSON-HAMILTON

Brumidi was paid $500 for this mural of Washington-Jefferson-Hamilton on the south wall of the Senate Reception Room as indicated by an 1873 voucher. Portions of two empty medallions showing in this reproduction beyond the “decorative figures in light and shade (chiaroscuro)” remind us of Brumidi’s sorrowful words in 1874: “Now many panels remain empty, disfiguring the elaborate ornaments and gilded mouldings around them, which sooner or later must be completed.{59}”

WASHINGTON AT YORKTOWN

This Cornwallis-Washington mural on the wall of the House of Representatives Chamber was criticized in 1857 as “unsuited to halls of deliberation where calm thought and unimpassioned reason are supposed to reside.” For architectural reasons, however, the painting will presently be removed from the House Chamber to a spot more accessible to ardent friends of Brumidi. On the strap of the brief case, lower right, is the famous Brumidi signature, “C. Brumidi, artist. Citizen of the U. S.” (Brumidi’s Dome Canopy signature can be found on page 52.)

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Brumidi’s choice of Benjamin Franklin as an American statesman to represent “History” in the decorative scheme of the frescoed ceiling of the President’s Room is appropriate. It may be that one of the half dozen sheets of parchment shown in the picture is meant to represent the Declaration of Independence, and the five others to represent the Constitution of the United States. Franklin helped to write both of these immortal documents. It has been said that Franklin is here at once easily recognized since this picture contains “all the characteristics of his many portraits and statues which are generally known.{62}{61}”

STORMING OF STONY POINT

Of the five frescoed lunettes in the larger Appropriations Committee Room of the Senate painted by Brumidi, the “Storming of Stony Point” is probably the most colorful. A voucher signed by Brumidi and dated October 19, 1871, reads, “For painting in fresco three panels in Committee Room on Military Affairs, Senate Wing, U. S. Capitol, viz: Washington at Valley Forge, Storming of Stony Point, Boston Massacre, @ $1000 each.” Said Senator Voorhees in 1880, “Who ever passed through the room of the Committee on Military Affairs without feeling that the very genius of heroism had left there its immortal inspirations.{63}”

TELEGRAPH

The laying of the Atlantic cable, with its great significance, has been painted by Brumidi into two Capitol frescoes. “Telegraph” is Brumidi’s own title for this lunette painted as a part of the ceiling fresco in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate. The beauty, freedom, and plenty of America extending a welcome across the seas, as here portrayed, was always in the heart of the artist. The working sketch for this lunette was among the Brumidi paintings stored in a Washington bank vault for forty years.

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LEGISLATION

One of four Madonnas from the frescoed ceiling of the President’s Room, Senate Annex.

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The Artist’s Compensation

PRESERVED today in the Capitol’s Brumidi file is a statement signed by Brumidi in 1874, but written in the third person “Relative to his Employment at the Capitol.” A portion of that statement follows:

“At one time Brumidi was employed in decorating the Capitol at the same compensation allowed Congressmen, and when that compensation was increased that benefit was also extended to him. At the breaking out of the Civil War Captain Meigs was promoted, and all the work at the Capitol was suspended but Senator Foot, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, as an exception retained Brumidi at work, and placed his name on the roll of the Senate official employees.

“After the war some paintings were completed under the orders of the Secretary of the Interior, and the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, executed by contract under the control of the Architect of the Capitol, but many long interruptions occurred, and much valuable time was lost for want of available appropriations.

“Now many panels remain empty, disfiguring the elaborate ornaments and gilded mouldings around them, which sooner or later must be completed; also that large frieze in the Rotunda sketched by order of Captain Meigs before the war, and intended to represent the history of the country.

“The artist Brumidi humbly proposes to proceed with the work on the economical system of daily wages as the only manner to avoid the inconvenience of interruptions for want of available appropriations.”

Known evidence seems to indicate that Brumidi died poor. This has led many to believe that the Government of the United States did not pay him sufficiently for his services. Even George C. Hazelton stated in 1903, “The late artist’s designs (for the frieze) were promptly appropriated without remuneration to his family for the thought and labor which they contained.” Were it not for the fact, already quoted, from the Report of the Architect of the Capitol for October 1, 1881, that the designs for these sections of the frieze were left by Brumidi only in small size and that Mr. Costaggini had to make the full sized cartoons, we might not recognize Hazelton’s error of statement.

It is well to remember that Mr. Brumidi was working on a per diem basis ($10.00 a{68} day) during the last few years of his life when his labors were interrupted by sickness. It is well to remember also that the artist worked for $8.00 per day during the years 1855 and 1856. During 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, and part of 1861, he worked also on a per diem basis, but at a salary of $10.00 per day. Monthly vouchers for these years, averaging about two hundred sixty dollars per month and signed “C. Brumidi,” are preserved today by the Architect’s office. In fact, most of the money paid the artist by the Government of the United States during his twenty-five years of service is recorded in voucher form and each voucher signed “C. Brumidi.”

From 1861 to 1872 were Brumidi’s best years financially, these being the years he received contract prices for his paintings.

On March 11, 1863, Mr. Brumidi signed a contract with the Government to paint the Canopy of the Dome for $40,000.00. (This contract is preserved in the Capitol Brumidi file.) A portion of a letter written by the Secretary of the Interior, dated November 6, 1863, refers to this contract:

“In March last an agreement was entered into with Mr. C. Brumidi for painting the canopy over the eye of the new dome of the Capitol in real fresco at an entire cost, including the cartoons and every other expense of not over $40,000, payment to be made in monthly bills as the work progresses, not to exceed $2,000 each.”

According to the old vouchers in the Architect’s office, the artist was actually paid $39,500 (chiefly in $2,000 installments) between 1863 and 1866, five hundred dollars having been withheld until the canopy should be declared finished. Brumidi died before this five hundred dollars was paid.

The years 1872, 1873, and 1874 were still contract years, but they were lean years, as only six vouchers totaling $2,350 can be found that were issued to the artist during those three years, and we find no Brumidi vouchers in the architect’s file for the years 1875 and 1876.

With the beginning of 1877, however, Brumidi was evidently re-employed at the Capitol at the rate of $10 per day as shown by two old “Time Books” which indicate month by month the hours worked and the total amount earned by the old artist from January 1877 up to the time of his death on February 19, 1880. These Time Books consistently carried Mr. Brumidi as fresco artist among its employed personnel of laborers, masons, plasterers, finishers, and painters. A Brumidi letter written to Architect Clark July 16, 1879, is the artist’s own verification that the Government of the United States paid him consistently for art work during his last years

HORATIO GATES

Profiled midst laurel, fruit, flowers, and birds, Horatio Gates is one of twenty American profiles painted by Brumidi, each set in its own panel, on the basement walls of the Senate Annex. The many bird decorations used to adorn these walls are so accurate that bird enthusiasts have been known to identify as many as sixty species. Senator Voorhees of Indiana knew of Brumidi’s love for birds and made reference to it in this manner: “He (Brumidi) loved these birds as a father loves his children and he often lingered in their midst as if a strong tie bound him to them.{70}{69}”

when much of that work had to be done in his studio because of failing health. The 1879 letter follows:

It seems reasonably certain that the Architect of the Capitol and other friends of Brumidi in the Congress of the United States at the time of Brumidi’s death wanted the old artist to have every dollar due him for the Capitol decorations, even to the extent of using the $200—apparently earlier appropriated for Dome scaffolding construction—to defray funeral expenses. Then, too, there is one voucher in the Brumidi voucher collection, dated February 19, 1880, the day the artist died, “for 13 days’ services as artist at $10.00—$130.00.” This voucher is not endorsed.

It is evidently true, also, that Brumidi died poor. In the following letter to Architect Clark, dated only five months before his death, and only two days before he fell from the frieze scaffolding we have the picture of a lonely artist facing lean years with fear—and a bit of remorse:

Four days after the artist’s death a bill was introduced into the Senate of the United States which read as follows:

“Be it enacted.... That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, directed to pay to the heirs of Constantino Brumidi, deceased, the sum of $500, that being the amount reserved from the last voucher paid him for painting in fresco the picture on the canopy of the Dome of the Capitol; and also to pay to said heirs the sum of $200 to defray the funeral expenses of said deceased; said payments to be made out of moneys appropriated by an act approved March 3, 1879.”

Upon introducing this bill, Senator Voorhees of Indiana made the following explanation:

“Mr. President, the reason for the introduction of this bill grows out of the following{71} facts: The Government made a contract with Mr. Brumidi for the painting, in fresco, on the canopy of the Dome of the Capitol. The scaffolding necessary to enable the artist to do his work was furnished by the Government. When the painting was finished and the scaffolding removed the Secretary of the Interior withheld the sum of $500 of the contract price as a guarantee for any retouching which the work might need after it dried out and became thoroughly seasoned to the air. This amount was held back, to be paid to Mr. Brumidi for such future attention on his part as the painting might be found to require.

“He was at all times in readiness to comply with the wishes of the Government on this subject. No scaffolding, however, was ever replaced on which to work in the Canopy of the Dome, nor was he ever called on by the officials having this matter in charge to give his painting there any further attention.... Both branches of Congress made the following provision in the sundry civil act for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880:

“‘To pay C. Brumidi for retouching and blending the picture in fresco on the Canopy of the Dome of the Capitol and for constructing a scaffolding under said picture, $700.’

“The money thus appropriated has been available nearly a year, yet no steps were taken by the proper authorities to enable Mr. Brumidi to ascend again into the Canopy of the Dome of this Capitol, and none now ever will be. In the exact and legal fulfillment of a contract it is our duty to pay this sum of $500 to his heirs. On this point I conceive there can be no difference of opinion. I have ventured, however, in the bill just introduced to ask Congress to apply the remaining $200 of the appropriation of March 3, 1879, to the payment of the funeral expenses of the great artist who has just passed away.”

Senator Morrill of Vermont followed Senator Voorhees on the Floor of the Senate on that 24th day of February back in 1880 to add his sanction to the bill introduced. Said Senator Morrill:

“Mr. President, I desire to express my hearty approval of the measure proposed by the Senator from Indiana. It is only justice—and that coldly measured—that we should now pay all we ever promised to one who can make no further demands upon us, but whose works will live to remind us of his twenty-five years of most valuable service in a branch of art where he stood on this continent confessedly foremost, whether among foreign or native artists. He leaves a daughter in Italy dependent upon a regular remittance from her father, and he leaves an adopted son beginning to be taught in the line of his father’s vocation, but not so far advanced as to give support. I hope it will be the pleasure of the Senate unanimously to pass the bill whenever it comes up for action.”

Senator Morrill who made the above speech in the Senate of the United States is the same Senator Morrill to whom Brumidi referred in the following letter written to Mr. Clark, Architect of the Capitol, and dated November 30, 1874:

According to endorsed vouchers and Time Book entries preserved by the Government of the United States in the Architect’s office of the Capitol, actual payment in money was made to Mr. Brumidi of something over $80,700 during a period of twenty-five years. While an average of $3,200 a year from 1855 to 1880 was not over-payment for Mr. Brumidi’s services, yet, by the same reasoning it cannot in truth be termed under-payment for those same years.

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Brumidi’s American Wife and Children

EVERY proof that my government was not responsible for Mr. Brumidi’s last hard years helped to focus my interest on the artist’s family, the family that should have eased the burdens of their benefactor.

I remembered that in a letter written to the Capitol Architect by Brumidi, the same year, 1874, that the artist prepared the statement, “Relative to his Employment at the Capitol,” is a reference to his temporary residence at Marine Hall. This letter contains also the artist’s first reference to a physical disability:

It is entirely possible that domestic difficulties had a bearing on the lean years and on the artist’s health. However, it is also possible that these were the years he used for work outside the city of Washington; it was in April 1871 that Brumidi wrote to the Architect of the Capitol mentioning the decorations in St. Stephen’s Church in New York.

I remembered, also, that the Congressional Bill, finally signed by the President on June 9, 1880, directing the payment of $500 to the children of Brumidi, actually named these children as

“Elena Brumidi of Rome, Italy

“Laurence S. Brumidi of Washington,

 District of Columbia.”

Immediately I attached added significance to two letters about Brumidi that I had recently found in the Capitol Brumidi file. One of these, a letter written in Rome, on June 14, 1879, by Brumidi’s daughter, Elena, evidently to the Architect of the Capitol, reads as follows:{76}

This letter from Elena, written about six months before her father’s death expressing fear at her father’s silence and concern about his “private interest” is practically all we know about Elena, the daughter Brumidi left behind in Italy. We do know, however, that she received her half of the $500 paid by Congress to the Brumidi heirs, as this payment is recorded in an old Department of Interior account book now in the National Archives. This Archives’ record contains an itemized statement of the actual expenditure of the $700 asked for in the Senate Bill introduced four days after Brumidi’s death. Even the $200 set aside for funeral expenses for the artist is accounted for by the Department of Interior, item by item.

The old artist fell from the frieze scaffolding on October 1, 1879. Six weeks later a petition, written in a strange hand but signed by Brumidi, was sent to the Congress of the United States. It gives Brumidi’s account of his accident and formally asks that he be put on the regular payroll of the Capitol employees. The petition is preserved in the Capitol’s Brumidi file and is given here in complete form:

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MR. AND MRS. C. BRUMIDI

Pictured here are the artist and his young American wife, Lola Germon, taken from old photographs saved by Lola in her album of memories. The originals have been cherished through the years by Mildred Thompson (of Washington, D. C.), Lola’s great-grandniece. We believe that both photographs were taken about the time of the Brumidi-Germon marriage, around 1860. From 1860 to 1865 was Brumidi’s period of greatest financial success in America and probably his years of greatest acclaim and happiness. It was on the back of this photograph of Lola Germon that her little boy Laurence chose to write, “This is my lovely Mamma.{78}”

The other letter of interest about a member of Brumidi’s family found in the Brumidi file at the Capitol was written from Paris, France, April 4, 1894, and is signed “Laurence S. Brumidi.” Laurence is the boy to whom Senator Morrill referred in his Senate speech on February 24, 1880, as the “adopted son” of Brumidi. This letter from Laurence to the Architect of the Capitol leads us to believe that Laurence is the artist’s own son. The letter is quoted in full as it is the only original document in the Brumidi file throwing any light on the American born son of the artist:

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WORKING SKETCH FOR THREE GRACES

Lola Germon is responsible for the early preservation of this little sketch of Brumidi’s nine beautiful maidens. It was a gift to Mrs. Ashmun Brown from her Aunt Lola. These maidens as painted in fresco on the ceiling of the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate are reproduced elsewhere in this book. This working sketch has had tender care, the colors being as softly beautiful today as those in the ceiling fresco itself.

This letter from Laurence S. Brumidi stirs many a question but the next truth uncovered about Laurence Brumidi left only silent years following the letter from Paris. Laurence was admitted to St. Elizabeth’s asylum in Washington, D. C., on May 26, 1916, and, according to the St. Elizabeth records, he died there on November 9, 1920, at the age of fifty-four.

Since the birth records at the Vital Statistics Bureau of the District of Columbia go back only as far as 1872, it has been impossible to find a record of the birth of Laurence. The District Records in the Marriage License Bureau of the Muncipal Court in Washington do not record a marriage for Mr. Brumidi in the early 1860’s. The marriage, of course, could have taken place in any nearby city.

In 1879 Mr. Brumidi made a Will which was filed, but not probated. In this Will, a copy of which follows, the artist referred to Laurence as “my boy,” bequeathed to him all of his “estate and property, real and personal” and made no mention of Laurence’s mother or of his half-sister, Elena, in Italy:

This Will of Constantino Brumidi was brought to light in Washington in 1919 when a lengthy article appeared in the Washington Sunday Star of November 2, entitled:

“Brumidi Paintings Found in Washington
After a Search of Forty Years.”

It seems that in 1919, The National Savings and Trust Company, on New York Avenue, about a block from the White House, found in their storage vault two large boxes containing twenty-four Brumidi paintings including a sketch of the Dome canopy—a circular canvas upon which was painted the design for the ceiling of the Dome. When and by whom these boxes were stored will probably never be known but it is entirely possible that they were packed away in the early years after having been willed to Laurence Brumidi.

The newspaper article for November 2, 1919, quotes the accumulated storage charges as $300. It states also that “the packing evidently was done by Brumidi himself because they were arranged so expertly as to sustain no damage whatever.”

The boxes were opened by Court Order by Mr. Edward P. Schwartz who was named executor of the 1879 Brumidi will, and also “named committeeman by the Court” for Laurence who had been committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

All of these Brumidi paintings found in 1919 are reported to have been sold at auction, including two large portraits of Lola Germon, Brumidi’s American-born wife and the mother of Laurence. The Sunday Star, in the above-mentioned article, reproduced the portrait of Lola and commented upon her beauty as well as upon her likeness to many of the Madonnas in the Capitol frescoes.

Charles E. Fairman, art curator of the Capitol, was present at the time these storage boxes were opened and has left a list of the contents of each box. He records a total of twenty-four paintings. Fairman also makes mention of the two portraits of Lola Germon in heavy gold, oval-shaped frames. But no one connected with the Capitol Building, so far as I have been able to learn, made a bid for any of the stored Brumidi paintings.

I have found, however, that two letters are on file from Mr. Edward P. Schwartz to Capitol authorities giving detailed information concerning the stored paintings. The Schwartz letter dated October 21, 1919, follows:

“Sometime ago I was made Executor under the Will of Mrs. Lola V. Kirkwood, who was the widow of Constantino Brumidi, the artist who devoted more than 25 years of his life to the beautification of the Capitol. Mr. Bru{81}midi has a son who is now in the Insane Asylum and under Mr. Brumidi’s Will, which was filed and never probated, he left all of his etchings of the Capitol and designs, etc., together with other paintings to his son. The Court appointed me Committeeman of this son with instructions to examine the several boxes that have been in storage for over thirty years and have their contents appraised and report to the Court. If you are interested, call by my office and we will go over and have these boxes opened to see what they contain as you may be able to make some suggestion as to their disposal.”

On February 21, 1920, Mr. Schwartz wrote again to the Capitol, this time to the Joint Committee on the Library:

“I am sending herewith enclosed an item in the Sunday’s Star entitled ‘Brumidi Paintings found in Washington after a Search of Forty Years.’ You will notice that these paintings are the original, or the copies from which Brumidi decorated the Capitol. Among the twenty-seven oil paintings of various sizes belonging to the estate of Brumidi, of which I am the Executor and Committeeman for his son, Laurence S. Brumidi, who is now in St. Elizabeth’s Asylum for the insane, there is one worthy of consideration, and that is the original oil painting of the Rotunda of the Capitol which I have in storage and is in excellent condition. This miniature is in oil, about 35 inches in diameter from which, no doubt, he copied his wonderful Rotunda painting. It is quite an education and shows the process of making a great picture. There are quite a number of his paintings in the collection, and I was wondering if the Committee on the Library would be sufficiently interested to confer with the object of offering a suggestion as to the final disposition of these paintings. It is my judgment they should be in the Capitol, as they are all, I believe, originals, and the only ones existing.... Personally, I would like to see these paintings in the Capitol.”

Mr. Fairman has left the following memorandum, dated October 22, 1919, in the Capitol files referring to the information from Mr. Schwartz: “Called on Edward P. Schwartz at 734 Fifteenth Street, N. W., in relation to attached letter. Mr. Schwartz showed me a copy of the Will of Constantino Brumidi, executed at 921 G Street, N. W., June 27, 1879, in which he appoints Robert Mason of Washington, D. C., his executor. The Will is witnessed by Wm. H. Appleton, A. H. Whittaker, Martha Dent, and Robert Mason. I made a copy of one section of the Will. While the entire Will is in favor of Laurence S. Brumidi, this paragraph seems to be the only one in which this office is interested:

“‘All engravings, works of art, paintings, and apparatus pertaining thereto ... all designs, sketches and tracings for the frieze of the Capitol of the U. S.’

“Mr. Schwartz also showed me his authority as Committeeman for Laurence S. Brumidi (insane) and stated that he was also the executor of the Will of Lola V. Kirkwood, former wife of Constantino Brumidi, that Mrs. Kirkwood married a second time one Kirkwood an Army officer, that he had searched for the boxes referred to in his letter and finally found them in storage at the National Savings and Trust Co., corner of N. Y. Ave. & 15th St., where they had been for over thirty years, and on which he had paid storage for that period amounting to about $386. He further stated that Mrs. Kirkwood and Laurence S. Brumidi had forgotten where the two boxes were stored. He will fix a date for opening the boxes and phone me so that I can be present and see the contents of the boxes.{82}”

On January 16, 1925, the Capitol authorities were again informed concerning the pending auction of these Brumidi originals, this time by a newspaper correspondent living in Washington. His name was Ashmun Brown and this is what he wrote:

“It may interest you to know that a considerable collection of the paintings of Brumidi, the fresco artist, is to be sold at auction at Sloane’s Gallery, on January 28th and 29th, by order of the Probate Court incident to the settlement of the estates of his widow and son. The pictures are to be open to inspection at Sloane’s on January 25th-28th. While I have never seen this collection, I understand that it contains several of Brumidi’s original studies for frescoes which now adorn the walls of the Capitol. I am told that at one time a valuation of about $20,000 was placed on this collection. However, when it was offered for sale at auction several months ago, the highest bid obtained was only $800. So at the insistence of the heirs another offering has been ordered. It occurred to me that you might be interested in the matter.”

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Brumidiana Outside the United States Capitol

REFERENCE by Charles E. Fairman to two portraits of Lola Germon painted by Brumidi and preserved in heavy gold frames that were finally sold at auction in the Capitol City of the United States in 1925 fired my interest anew in the American-born wife of Brumidi, the beautiful girl who is said to have modeled for many of the Madonnas painted on Capitol walls and ceilings. While searching for something tangible about Lola Germon I was led to an extensive inquiry as to Brumidi’s burial place.

BRUMIDI’S GRAVE

At the very point of giving up the quest for Brumidi’s grave I called all the old burial grounds in the District and asked that they search their records for a Brumidi burial in 1880. Glenwood Cemetery in Northeast Washington soon reported that Constantino Brumidi was recorded to have been buried there on February 21, 1880, in Lot 70, site 6.

On my first visit to the old section of Glenwood Cemetery I searched out Lot 70. It was surrounded by an iron fence bearing the name Germon, 1877, on a sagging gate. There was no marker on site 6, to indicate the burial place of Brumidi. It seemed clear to me that Lola Germon must have buried her artist husband in the old family burial plot since two small white stones, on sites 1 and 2 of Lot 70, evidently marked the burial places of Lola’s father and mother, the father having been buried there in 1855 and the mother some twenty years later.

As I looked upon Brumidi’s unmarked grave, the unknown grave of the artist who spent his last twenty-five years decorating the Capitol Building of the United States, I decided that sometime I would paint the little white-washed iron fence around Lot 70 as my personal tribute to those twenty-five Brumidi years. Several years went by. It was the spring of 1946 before I began painting the iron fence.

On my first painting day, as I labored, weaving highly colored fiction about the beautiful American girl and the romantic old artist, three times her age, I was startled by a young voice directly behind me which excitedly asked, “Why are you painting the fence around this Cemetery Lot?”

I turned to find a lovely girl watching my efforts with deep concern. I was so startled as to be unable to give any logical reason for{86} painting an old fence partly hidden by poison ivy in the oldest corner of an old cemetery, so I asked the young visitor this question, “Why are you interested?” She replied quickly and firmly, “I have a right to know.”

Soon I found myself telling this girl the whole story of Brumidi and his unmarked burial place. She listened with an unbelievable concern and then launched forth with a story of her own that so far outmatched mine as to appear at first a bit of imaginative make-believe. Said she:

“All my life I have heard my people talk about this artist, Brumidi, and it seems that I have always known he was buried inside this little iron fence. His unmarked grave has had a strange fascination for me, ever since childhood. Every time I pass the cemetery in a street car I look over at this little iron fence on the hillside and think about this forgotten grave that means so much to me.

“As I was riding past today, wondering if I would forever be the only one interested in the lonesome little Brumidi fence, I suddenly thought I saw a woman painting that very fence. I kept telling myself it was not true, that I must have imagined such an unheard-of thing, and all the time my street car carried me farther and farther away. Finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer I got off the car, took a trolley back—and here I am—and there you are—,” and she stopped for breath.

Sensing my completely mystified expressions, she added, “You see, it was my great-grand aunt, Lola Germon, who modeled for the Capitol Madonnas and later married Brumidi.”

I went home with Lola Germon’s great-grandniece, Mildred Thompson, and met the Thompson family. Mildred’s mother slightly doubted my sanity for painting a cemetery fence belonging to a stranger but presently she laid before me a deed to the cemetery lot and a family album given to her by Lola Germon. Mrs. Thompson’s cemetery deed had been issued by Glenwood Cemetery to Eliza A. Germon, Lola’s mother, in 1866 and verified the cemetery records that show Brumidi as buried in Lot 70, site 6; Laurence Brumidi in site 4; and Lola Brumidi in site 5. (Only, Lola Germon Brumidi was Lola Virginia Kirkwood at the time of her death in 1918, and both she and her third husband, Edward Kirkwood, are buried in site 5.)

LOLA GERMON’S ALBUM

It was a great disappointment to me that the Thompson family knew so few facts about Lola and her artist husband, but by means of Lola’s album and by word of mouth they verified certain facts in my mind.

BRUMIDI’S GRAVE

The grave site of Constantino Brumidi, in Glenwood Cemetery (Washington, D. C.) will soon bear a marker from the Government of the United States. In this picture, taken in early spring, we can locate the burial site of the Capitol artist in the immediate foreground, just inside the little iron fence, that being site 6 of Lot 70. Twin shafts on sites 1 and 2 within the fence mark the graves of Lola Germon’s parents. The deed to this lot, issued in 1866 to Eliza Germon, Lola’s mother, is now in the possession of Lola’s great-grandniece, Mildred Thompson, of Washington.

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They knew that Lola Germon had married Brumidi when she was about eighteen years old; that Laurence was their only son; that the beautiful Lola had modeled for many of the Capitol paintings; and that at one time, as Mrs. Brumidi, Lola attended a White House reception with her artist husband, in the most beautiful gown he could afford to buy.

The hallowed old album in which Lola had chosen to preserve her treasured Brumidi memories held many pictures of Brumidi, of Laurence, and of the young Lola, but for the most part all pictures were undated and unmarked—all, save one. On the back of a photograph of a very beautiful young girl (Lola Germon) were these words, written in a childish hand, “This is my lovely mama.”

Four small unmarked photographs on the last pages of the old album are of special interest since they are reproductions of religious paintings. It was my guess that they were photographs of Brumidi’s working sketches for church decorations—and to date two of these have been identified. The huge fresco over the main altar in St. Stephen’s Church in New York, some 70 feet in height, is the same “Crucifixion” as that in the little photograph in Lola’s album, and the large fresco over the main altar in the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia is the same “Crucifixion” scene only with outstanding figures of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at the foot of the cross.

MILDRED THOMPSON’S COLLECTION

Mildred Thompson, Lola Germon’s great-grandniece, later salvaged a packet of old letters and legal documents from Laurence Brumidi’s trunk now stored at the home of a relative, all of which helps to unravel the tangled Brumidi story.

A deed to certain Washington property dated November 19, 1864, and signed by Constantino Brumidi and wife, Lola V. Brumidi, is the earliest document found containing Lola’s signature. The latest document in this Thompson collection signed by Lola as Mrs. Brumidi is an indenture signed by both Constantino Brumidi and Lola V. Germon Brumidi borrowing $2,500 in 1870. The next document in point of time bearing Lola’s name in this collection is a letter written to Mrs. Lola V. Walsh, 911 G St., N. W., on March 22, 1879, by a Washington lawyer announcing that he had obtained a loan of $3,500 on the premises at 921 G St. (where the old artist later died) and stating that since the deed conveying the property to Lola was in his possession she could take charge of the property and begin her repairs at once.

Sometime, then, between 1870 and 1879 Lola was evidently divorced from the Italian artist and married to a Mr. Walsh. Tax receipts, insurance receipts, and interest statements in this same Thompson collection, signed by Lola and dated from 1880 to 1892 indicate that Lola V. Walsh married a Mr. Kirkwood sometime between August 31, 1891, and August 30, 1892, at which later date a fire insurance receipt bears the signature, Mrs. Lola V. Kirkwood.

The packet of documents from Laurence’s trunk contains also the following valued items:

(1) Two letters written by “C. Brumidi” to the Architect of the Capitol—one, dated August 26, 1876, and the other dated November 26, 1879, the latter being probably the last letter ever written by the artist to the Architect. These two letters were no doubt given to Laurence from the Brumidi file by Architect Clark himself. (2) Two letters written to C. Brumidi by Senator Morrill of Vermont—one, dated May 19th (probably 1865) and the other, dated June 20, 1878. (3) A{89}

LOLA GERMON’S ALBUM

In the showing before you the artist and Lola focus attention to the upper half of the right-hand page. The lower half portrays Elena Brumidi, the artist’s daughter left behind in Italy, and the artist’s son, Laurence, the child of his American wife Lola, in Washington. On the left-hand page are pictures of four religious paintings. The upper two have been identified as photographs of working sketches for Brumidi paintings in St. Stephen’s Church, New York City, and the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, Philadelphia. The lower two have not been identified.

business letter from a Washington lawyer to Laurence in Paris in 1893, forwarding to him certain papers to be signed which would ultimately give him $600 from his mother. (4) Laurence’s application in Washington for a loan of $5000 in August, 1895. (5) Consummation of that $5000 loan in September, 1895, by Laurence’s mother. (6) A letter from a London artist to Laurence in Washington in 1897 in which the Londoner wrote, “I hope you are increasing your bank account and that some day we will see you back again as I suppose you long to be. Now brace up. I don’t think you will ever be happy outside Paris or Italy.” (7) Two letters from Lola V. Kirkwood to Laurence in Washington in 1902. (8) A photograph of the original working sketch of the Dome Canopy. (9) An old{90} clipping entitled “His Wife His Model.” (10) The Bible given to C. Brumidi by the American Bible Society when the artist landed in New York in 1852.

The two Brumidi letters kept through the years by Laurence will be quoted in full, as they are further proof that Brumidi was paid by the Government of the United States for his work on the Rotunda frieze designs during his last years even when confined by illness to his studio. Brumidi’s conscientious effort to make each day profitable to his government as well as to himself is also a part of the following letter:

The following 1879 letter to Architect Clark is the only one found written by the artist himself after his almost fatal fall from the frieze on October 1, 1879:

Senator Morrill’s friendship for Brumidi is forever recorded in the following two letters written to the artist:

(This letter must have been written after May, 1865, as that was the date Edward Clark became Architect of the Capitol.)

Lola Germon Kirkwood was about sixty years old and Laurence Brumidi was forty-one when the following two letters were written from the mother to the son:

The photograph of the original working sketch for the Dome Canopy saved through the years in the trunk of Laurence Brumidi is clear and the figures very distinct. This photograph no doubt was mounted for the purpose of registry in the District, for beneath the picture is the following printed notation:

“Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1866 by Constantino Brumidi, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Columbia.”

On the back of this picture is an Internal Revenue stamp cancelled on May 12, 1866. It was the original of this photograph, oil on canvas, some thirty-six inches in diameter, which was among the Brumidi paintings found in 1919 in Washington after being stored away for forty years.

As we examine closely the characters portrayed on the small photograph of Brumidi’s original working sketch for the Rotunda canopy, or on any canopy photographs taken in the Rotunda, the figure of Columbia is outstanding. Columbia is pictured as armed Liberty with “sword, shield, and angry eagle driving out tyranny, pestilence and fear.” However, it is the faded old clipping that Lola saved with the 1866 photograph that adds the romantic luster to Columbia in this Dome Canopy design, especially since we remember the exact words of Mildred Thompson: “Aunt Lola always said she modeled for Freedom in the Dome Canopy.” The faded clipping is quoted in full:{92}

“Visitors to the Capitol who admire the beautiful decorative work to be seen in the rotunda and in the corridors, especially on the Senate end of the building, will find additional interest in the work of the artist when they learn the source of his inspiration for many of the female figures that appear in the designs.

“The aged artist, Brumidi, whose brush did most of the most beautiful of the decorative work of the Capitol, married in Washington, D. C., Miss Lola Germon, a young lady well known for her beauty, which has been perpetuated in many of the paintings executed by her husband. Features a little too well rounded to be thoroughly classic, black hair, a fair complexion and blue eyes, together with a shapely form, were the characteristics of Mrs. Brumidi. She was greatly admired not only for her beauty of person, but for her qualities of mind, which made her a general favorite in that city. One of the figures in the ceiling of the rotunda is said to be an exact likeness of the artist’s beautiful wife, while most of the figures he painted in the Capitol portray some of her characteristics.”

The old Bible given to Mr. Brumidi by the American Bible Society in 1852 when the artist landed in New York no doubt was originally saved by Lola Germon for her son Laurence. On the inside front cover are these words written in the C. Brumidi hand:

“Constantino Brumidi from Rome, Italy, arrived in New York, America, the 18th of September, 1852. Presented to me by the American Bible Society.”

The only other writing in the Bible is the following on a blank page for births—also in the C. Brumidi hand:

BRUMIDI WORKING SKETCHES

Brumidi’s technique is of great interest. First, he executed his design in color on a small canvas in oil. This he termed a working sketch. Then he drew the large outline figures which he called cartoons with the miniature oil before him. These large cartoons served as stencils through which he dusted powder or charcoal, thus outlining his groups quickly upon the wall or ceiling.

The Brumidi working sketches found in Washington during recent years are in a wonderfully fine state of preservation, whether they have come directly from the hand of Lola Germon or from Laurence Brumidi’s storage cache found in 1919, or from other sources. Most of the canvases have in no manner been restored or retouched but the colors are soft and true and pleasing. Those art lovers who fear that certain Capitol decorations may have suffered by “restorations” have but to compare the Capitol fresco with its working sketch to be reassured.

Mrs. Ashmun Brown owns working sketches for four of the frescoes in the Capitol Building, “History,” “Physics,” and “The Three Graces” in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate, and for the “Cornwallis-Washington” mural in the House of Representatives Chamber. Mrs. Brown also has the Brumidi working sketches for four of his religious paintings.

In addition to being the grandniece of Lola Germon, Mrs. Brown is the wife of the late{93} Ashmun Brown, the Washington correspondent who wrote the Capitol officials back in 1925 advising them that an auction of Brumidi paintings was scheduled, and urging the Government to investigate the treasures. Mrs. Brown received four of her Brumidi paintings direct from Aunt Lola Germon, and five more were purchased at the auction in 1925. She regrets not having bought, at that auction, the two portraits of Lola Germon by Brumidi, as these two paintings have not yet been found.

Mrs. Harvey Hunt who attended the Brumidi auction of 1925 with Mrs. Ashmun Brown, purchased four of the Brumidi paintings. Two of these are working sketches of cherubs, one bearing the Brumidi signature; another, a sketch of Lola Germon used for “Prudence” in the Senate Reception Room; and the fourth, an oval landscape much like those painted on the walls of the main corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Annex.

Mrs. Hunt being a grandniece of Lola Germon gave three of her treasures to a grandnephew of her Aunt Lola so today three of these working sketches are in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Germon.

Mrs. McCook Knox owns the two original working sketches for “Telegraph” and “Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union”—“Telegraph” being one of four large lunettes in the main District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate while the fresco depicting the Civil War theme covers the ceiling in this Committee’s ante-room. This ante-room was originally the Senate Sergeant at Arms’ office.

Mrs. Knox purchased her oil studies from Mr. H. O. Bishop. Her study of “Telegraph” was reproduced in the Washington Star in 1919 as one of the originals stored away for 40 years. Both of the above mentioned pictures now owned by Mrs. Knox were purchased by Mr. Bishop at the C. G. Sloan auction rooms in 1925.

Captain Alexander Macomb, U. S. Navy, inherited nine Brumidi working sketches from his father, Colonel Augustus C. Macomb. These paintings can be traced to the same Captain Meigs with whom Brumidi carried on early correspondence. Being such a prolific painter, Brumidi, no doubt, remembered his friends generously with original sketches.

At the death of General Meigs in 1892, his Brumidi originals were given to a nephew, Lieutenant Augustus C. Macomb, who later became a Colonel in the United States Army. The present Captain Alexander Macomb who now owns the nine Brumidi working sketches has given them the best of care through the years. Two of these Macomb canvases are the working sketches for frescoes in the Appropriations Committee Room of the Senate—“The Battle of Lexington” and “The Storming of Stony Point.” A third canvas is the sketch of the entire groined arch in the ceiling of the Senate Reception Room and displays the four allegorical groupings—“Liberty,” “Plenty,” “War,” and “Peace.”

Captain Macomb tells how his father traveled from one army post to another over a quarter of a century taking with him his family and his household possessions and always the beautiful Brumidi paintings went along. Those nine Brumidi originals hung in an adobe house at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, from 1900 to 1905.

Mrs. Edmund B. Montgomery who owns the working sketch for the Dome Canopy, now has it hanging in Collingwood near Mount Vernon where it can easily be seen by visitors. This Dome Canopy sketch, some 35 inches in diameter, was also in the “storage find” of 1919 and sold at auction, according{94} to Mrs. Ashmun Brown, for $300 in 1925. This sketch is definitely authenticated by means of the circular photograph saved in Laurence Brumidi’s trunk and bearing the Internal Revenue Stamp dated May 12, 1866. It is indeed fortunate that we have located not only the original working sketch of this Dome Canopy but a photograph of this sketch made in 1866 originally owned by the artist himself and saved for us by Laurence Brumidi, son of the Capitol fresco painter.

Warrenton House owns, and has on display in Warrenton, Virginia, the working sketch of the group painting in the Senate Reception Room—Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton in consultation. This small painting about ten inches square no doubt was originally sold at the Sloan auction in 1925.

Mrs. Murray Russell is the owner of two portraits done by Brumidi. These are of added interest as Brumidi treasures because of the story attached to them. The paintings portray the grandparents of Mrs. Russell—Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Joyce. According to Mrs. Russell, it was her grandmother’s brother, John Norris, a student in Rome around 1850 studying to be a priest, who influenced Brumidi to come to America with him in 1852. Brumidi is reported to have lived at the Joyce home in Washington at one time and so great was his appreciation for this haven that he painted the portraits of his benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Joyce.

Ceylon M. Boswell purchased at auction several years ago the portrait of a woman. The painting bore the Brumidi signature and has hung in the Boswell home where it has received excellent care. By means of a small photograph in Lola Germon’s album, we have been able recently to identify the likeness as that of Mrs. Edward Clark, wife of Mr. Clark who was Capitol architect during most of the time Brumidi painted at the Capitol Building.

Two paintings in the Washington, D. C., home of Dr. Edward C. Morse have been in the family since about 1875. One is the portrait of Dr. Morse’s maternal grandfather bearing the Brumidi signature, while the other is a copy of the famous “Titian’s Daughter.” The latter bears no signature but both pictures have been known as Brumidi’s through the years. Each bears the label of having been originally framed by “McElroy’s Art Store, 1003 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C.”

Miss Charlotte Clark, late of Sandwich, Mass., granddaughter of Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol from 1865 to 1902, had inherited from her parents two family

WORKING SKETCH OF DOME CANOPY

The Dome fresco shown at right could not have been photographed from any spot in the Rotunda because all six allegorical groups about the center “Apotheosis of Washington” are here shown without obstruction. This reproduction is from a photograph of Brumidi’s working sketch of the Dome which is mounted on ornamental cardboard, said photograph on cardboard having been saved through the years in Laurence Brumidi’s trunk. The photograph was apparently mounted in this manner for registration purposes in the District Court as the cancelled stamp on the back is marked, “Internal Revenue, Proprietary, May 12, 1866.”

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portraits painted by Brumidi. One of these is the portrait of Mrs. Edward Clark holding her small son, Watson Clark. The other is that of Edward Clark’s twin daughters.

In Lola Germon’s old album are two small faded photographs, one of Mrs. Clark and baby, the other of twin girls. These two pictures were evidently used as studies at the time Brumidi painted the large portraits for the Clark family.

Edith Smith Hawes has inherited the working sketch for the altar mural, “Crucifixion,” in St. Stephen’s Church, New York City. It was given to Mrs. Hawes’ father, Amzi Smith, by Brumidi during the years Mr. Smith had charge of the Senate Document Room.

Mrs. Hawes remembers having heard her father tell often of his close friendship with the Capitol artist. Her father’s most vivid story told of Brumidi’s hasty visit one day to the Senate Document Room and how the artist said to her father, “Amzi, please sit down and put your hand on the arm of that chair.” Mr. Smith obeyed. Mr. Brumidi sketched rapidly. As the artist left he called back, “Here I go to put Amzi Smith’s hand on Thomas Jefferson.” “And,” says Mrs. Hawes, “I still visit the Senate Reception Room to see my father’s hand on the great Jefferson.”

The Sisters of the Visitation Convent in Bethesda tell that in January, 1878, Sister Aloysius Gardiner of the Visitation Convent on Connecticut Avenue and L Streets, where the Mayflower Hotel is now situated, celebrated the “Silver Jubilee of her profession.” At that time her uncle, Mr. Philip Simms of New Orleans, wishing to commemorate the event in a fitting manner, employed the artist, Constantino Brumidi, to paint a large picture for the Convent chapel. The subject was “The Apparition of our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary.” The canvas measured 17 feet in height with the figures life-size.

The painting was done by Brumidi in the Distribution Hall of the old Convent school and then hung in the chapel over the altar for forty-one years. In 1919 when the old Convent was sold and the Sisters moved to their new Convent in Bethesda, Maryland, the Brumidi painting was found to be too large for the new chapel so it was given to Holy Trinity Church, Georgetown, where it still adorns a side wall near the altar.

St. Aloysius Church in the Capitol City displays three paintings by Brumidi—the large mural over the central altar and two

ST. ALOYSIUS MURAL

“St. Charles Borroméo giving Holy Communion to St. Aloysius Gonzaga” is the title of this Brumidi picture, painted in 1859, which is over the main altar of the St. Aloysius Church, Washington, D. C. Brumidi gave to the kneeling figure at the extreme right the features of Father Benedict Sestini, S.J., professor at Georgetown College, Architect of St. Aloysius Church and close friend of Brumidi. Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas is said to have modeled for the beautiful mother of St. Aloysius. Brumidi’s own likeness, faintly painted, can be identified in the center background beneath the ciborium held by St. Charles Borroméo. The present low altar of St. Aloysius Church lays bare the lower part of the Brumidi mural which was intended to be covered permanently by the original high altar.

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medallions over the side altars. The church is especially proud of the central mural as Brumidi painted into the picture the likeness of Father Sestini, architect of the church and friend of Brumidi.

The diary of the St. Aloysius Church has the following entry dated October 3, 1859, “Today the picture over the main altar is finished and the last scaffolding is removed from the church.”

Another entry in the church diary of interest to us here is dated February 19, 1880, “Father Sestini came in the evening in response to a letter sent him by Mr. Brumidi’s adopted son, telling him that his master was dying and wished him present but Father Sestini was too late as he (Mr. Brumidi) had already died in the morning. The eminent artist and Father Sestini are intimate friends and it was through their united efforts that St. Aloysius Church received the beautiful pictures it now possesses. Though Mr. Brumidi was not always a practicing Catholic he was induced to practice his religious duties during the last year of his life by Father Sestini. May he rest in peace.”

The author was able to identify in St. Stephen’s Church in New York, another Brumidi painting—a life-size portrait of the Christ, displayed in a gilded frame. St. Stephen’s had no written record and no word-of-mouth record that this outstanding portrait had been done by Brumidi but always the painting had occupied a choice location in the church because of its strength and beauty. One of the little photographs of religious groupings saved by Lola Germon in her old album of memories served as identification for the New York portrait to the satisfaction of the author and to the surprise and gratification of the pastor.

THE BRUMIDI DESK

The Brumidi desk was given by the Italian artist to George Strieby at the time of the artist’s death. Mr. Strieby not only was a friend of Brumidi’s but was employed to help the artist with the huge mural in St. Aloysius Church. The desk was cherished by Mr. Strieby and at his death was given to his son, Philip. During the lifetime of Philip the Brumidi desk occupied an honored place in the young Strieby household. At Philip’s death a relative cleaned out the old desk, without the knowledge of Mrs. Strieby, and burned certain of Brumidi’s famous “cartoons” that had been used in making the Capitol frescoes in the President’s Room and which had been stored through the years in the secret compartment of the old artist’s desk. However, Mrs. Philip Strieby continued to watch over the desk with consistent vigilance—out of sentiment for her husband, her father-in-law and Brumidi.

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THE CAPITOL DOME

The Dome of the Capitol Building of the United States actually symbolized to Constantino Brumidi “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In return for that liberty and security this Italian refugee dedicated himself in service to his adopted country. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life “making beautiful the Capitol of the one country on earth in which there is Liberty.” His crowning effort was the huge canopy in color—4,664 square feet of concave fresco—covering the inside of the Dome of the Capitol of the country he had learned to love.

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It was of great interest to Mrs. Strieby to learn that I had found the name of George W. Strieby listed as “fresco painter” in the two old Time Books in the Architect’s office at the Capitol which books consistently give the earnings both of Strieby and of Brumidi during the last three years of Brumidi’s life—1877, 1878, and 1879. In many instances the Strieby signature followed the Brumidi signature in the old Time Books in spite of an otherwise alphabetical listing of Capitol employees. All of this lends credence to the story of Mrs. Strieby that Philip’s father loved the old artist, helped him through his last hard years, and finally shared responsibility for the burial of Brumidi in Glenwood Cemetery.

The Brumidi desk is of Cuban mahogany on wild cherry, made around 1820. It has recently been restored with great skill by Charles McGahan who has given it a fine finish and a dignified beauty that speaks of Brumidi and his art.

The old desk is on display in Congressman Murdock’s office—held in trust for Mrs. Strieby until such time as it can be a part of a Brumidi memorial cared for by the Government of the United States. Mrs. Strieby died one week after urging the author to take over responsibility for the desk. She did not live to see the restored beauty of Brumidi’s last gift to Grandfather Strieby, but she was happy knowing that her obligation to Brumidi and to his good friend, Grandfather Strieby, had been fulfilled.

NATIONAL RECOGNITION

The Congress of the United States recently voted an appropriation which provided a marker and perpetual care for the long lost grave of Constantino Brumidi in Glenwood Cemetery. This legislation was signed by President Truman on June 30, 1950. The marker will soon be put in place with appropriate ceremony and loving tribute.

Even the best 1950 eulogy to Constantino Brumidi, however, cannot surpass the simple statement of appreciation and understanding offered on the Floor of the Senate of the United States soon after the death of the great artist. Said Senator Voorhees of Indiana on February 24, 1880:

“Mr. Brumidi was engaged at the time of his death on what he regarded as the greatest work of his life. He was unfolding with the magic of genius in the Dome of the Capitol the scroll of American history, from the landing of Columbus to the present day. He earnestly desired to live long enough to complete this vast conception. But he has left an empty chair, and his great design unfinished, as others have done and will continue to do in other places.

“At no distant day some memorial will be erected in some appropriate place in the Capitol to his memory. He who beautifies the pathway of life, who creates images of loveliness for the human eye to rest upon, is a benefactor of the human race. He will be crowned by the gratitude of his own and of succeeding generations. In the older countries of Europe, where the profession of art has a higher rank than here, Brumidi would have had a public funeral, and his remains would have been deposited in ground set apart for persons of distinction. In England he would have had a place and a tablet in Westminster Abbey.

“It matters little, however, whether we or those who come after us do anything to perpetuate his memory. The walls of this Capitol will hold his fame fresh and ever increasing as long as they themselves shall stand.{101}”

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Supplement

READING LIST

BOOKS

NEWSPAPERS

The Washington Post

“Death of Brumidi,” Feb. 20, 1880.

“Historical Frieze in Capitol Finished after Many Years,” Jan. 16, 1921.

The Washington Star

“Funeral of Constantino Brumidi,” Feb. 21, 1880.

“The President’s Room at the Capitol,” April 13, 1913.

“Artist Is Restoring Capitol’s Great Paintings,” April 13, 1919.

“Brumidi Paintings Found in Washington after a Search of Forty Years,” Nov. 2, 1919.

“Moberly Restoring Brumidi Decorations at Capitol,” Aug. 14, 1921.

The Daily Evening Telegraph

“Death of Brumidi,” Feb. 19, 1880.

“Constantino Brumidi,” Feb. 20, 1880.

The New York Daily Tribune

“The Decoration of the Capitol,” May 17, 1858.

“The Decorations of the Capitol,” Signed Guglielmo Gajani, May 31, 1858.

PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

American Artists. “Memorial to the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States,” Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, March 3, 1859. (35th Congress, 2nd Session, Report No. 198.)

Curtis, Carlton B. “Defence of Italian Art,” Congressional Globe, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, June 15, 1860.

Harris, Cong. “Condemning Brumidi Art,” Congressional Globe, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, June 15, 1860.

Lovejoy, Owen. “Ridicule of Brumidi,” Congressional Globe, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, May 19, 1858. (35th Congress, 1st Session.)

Morrill, Senator Justin S. “Eulogizing Brumidi,” Congressional Record, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, Feb. 24, 1880.

Sheppard, Cong. Harry. “Poems by Carlyle on Brumidi,” Congressional Record, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, March 31, 1944.

Voorhees, Senator. “Eulogizing Brumidi,” Congressional Record, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, Feb. 24, 1880.

REPORTS OF CAPITOL ARCHITECTS

Meigs, Captain M. C.

Annual Report, Oct. 27, 1859, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Completion of President’s Room.)

Walter, Thomas U.

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1863, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Beginning of Dome Canopy.)

Clark, Edward

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1865, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Completion of Dome Canopy.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1870, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Senate Reception Room.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1871, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Military Affairs Committee Room.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1872, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Senate Reception Room.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1874, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (“Signing of First Treaty with Great Britain.”)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1875, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (“Session of Louisiana,” and “Bellona.”)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1877, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Rotunda Frieze.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1880, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Death of Brumidi.)

Annual Report, Nov. 1, 1881, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office. (Brumidi’s small-sized cartoons.)

MISCELLANEOUS

Brumidi Paintings Found in Washington after a Search of Forty Years.

BOX 1

• 1 Framed Picture, Five Female Figures
• 1 Framed Picture Panel
• 1 Framed Picture Panel
• 1 Framed Picture, Woman and Man
• 1 Oval Portrait (Mrs. Brumidi)
• 1 Large Picture, The Five Senses (Same as at Museum)

BOX 2

• 1 Sketch, Child Study
• 1 Framed Bust Portrait, Female
• 1 Study, Cross
• 1 Study, Presentation in the Temple
• 1 Painting, Mother and Child
• 1 Sleeping Child
• 3 Studies
• 1 Sketch for Dome Ceiling
• 1 Sketch, Transportation
• 1 Oval Sketch, Nuts and Trees
• 1 Portrait of Washington, after G. Stuart
• 1 Framed Study
• 1 Portrait Boy Franklin
• 1 Oval Portrait of Mrs. Brumidi
• 1 Portrait Study, Prayer
• 1 Circular Canvas, Design for Ceiling of Dome

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Above list presumably compiled by Charles E. Fairman, Art Curator, U. S. Capitol, who was present at the time the boxes containing the Brumidi Paintings were opened.

BRUMIDI CAPITOL DECORATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ROOM

(Old Agriculture Committee Room)

Wall Frescoes

• Calling of Cincinnatus from the Plow
• Calling of Putnam from the Plow to the Revolution

Ceiling Fresco Groups

• Spring
• Summer
• Autumn
• Winter

Medallion Heads in oil (wall)

• Washington
• Jefferson

Scenes in Oil (wall)

• Cutting Grain with a Sickle
• Harvesting Grain with a McCormick Reaper

“Painted in 1855” (from a statement left by Brumidi)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBER

Wall painting (working sketch saved by Lola Germon)

“Washington at Yorktown receiving the officer sent by Cornwallis to ask a two days’ cessation of hostilities.”

“C. Brumidi, artist,
Citizen of the U.S.”

Letter to Superintendent of Capitol Extension, December 14, 1857

PRESIDENT’S ROOM, SENATE EXTENSION

Symbolic Fresco Groups (ceiling Madonnas)

• Executive Authority
• Legislation
• Liberty
• Religion

Life-size Ceiling Portraits in Fresco

• Brewster (Religion)
• Columbus (Discovery)
• Franklin (History)
• Vespucius (Exploration)

Ceiling to Floor Panels with Portraits of Washington’s First Cabinet

• Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State
• Edmund Randolph, Attorney General
• Henry Knox, Secretary of War
• Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
• Samuel Osgood, Postmaster General

Oil Portrait of George Washington (decorative)

“Will be finished by the next meeting of Congress” (From Architect’s Report, Oct. 27, 1859)

CAPITOL DOME

Apotheosis of Washington (Fresco)

(working sketch sold in 1925 auction)

• Washington
• Freedom
• Victory
• 13 Female Figures

Emblematic Groups (Fresco)

• Agriculture (Ceres)
• Mechanics (Vulcan)
• Commerce (Mercury)
• Marine (Neptune)
• Arts and Sciences (Minerva)
• War (Freedom)

“C. Brumidi, 1865”

Architect’s Report, November 1, 1865

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE ROOMS

SOUTH ROOM (OLD MILITARY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE ROOM)

Large Lunettes (Wall Frescoes)

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• Boston Massacre, 1770
• Battle of Lexington, 1775 (working sketch saved by Capt. Meigs)
• Death of Wooster, 1777
• Washington at Valley Forge, 1778
• Storming of Stony Point, 1779 (working sketch saved by Capt. Meigs)

Frescoed Ceiling

• Victors’ Wreaths, Shields, and Emblems of War
• Medallion Head of Liberty

NORTH ROOM (OLD NAVAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE ROOM)

9 Panels in oil (walls)

• Female figures with Navy attributes

Ceiling Frescoes

• Marine Gods and Goddesses

Ancient Porticoes in oil (wall)

Architect’s Report, November 1, 1871

Letter to Architect Clark, May 1, 1871

SENATE RECEPTION ROOM

(Name not changed)

Allegorical Groupings in Fresco (ceiling)

Groined Arch (working sketch saved by Capt. Meigs)

• Liberty
• Plenty
• War
• Peace
• Circular Arch

• Prudence
• Justice
• Temperance
• Strength

Panels in chiaroscuro (walls)

• Decorative Figures

• Wall Centerpiece in Oil (working sketch owned by Warrenton House)

• Washington in Consultation with Jefferson and Hamilton

Architect’s Report, November 1, 1872

Letter to Architect Clark, May 1, 1871

SENATE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE ROOMS

LARGE ROOM (DECORATED FOR SENATE LIBRARY)

Allegorical Groups (Ceiling Frescoes)

• Geography
• History (working sketch saved by Lola Germon)
• Telegraph (working sketch sold at 1925 auction)

Decorative Groups (Ceiling Frescoes)

• Three maidens each (working sketch saved by Lola Germon)

SMALL ROOM (OLD SERGEANT AT ARMS OFFICE)

Allegorical Designs (Wall Frescoes)

• Secession and Products of North and South
• War and Strife
• Rods United—“E Pluribus Unum”
• Implements of War Destroyed

Ceiling Fresco

“Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union” (working sketch sold in 1925 auction)

“C. Brumidi, 1876.”

Architect’s Report, November 1, 1875

CORRIDORS, GROUND FLOOR, SENATE ANNEX

SOUTH CORRIDOR

• 8 Studies in oil (Animals)
• 8 Ovals in oil (U. S. Shields)

“PATENT CORRIDOR”

Wall Frescoes

• Robert Fulton (called also “Palisades of the Hudson”)
• John Fitch (working on model of steamboat)
• Benjamin Franklin (in his laboratory)

Brumidi Voucher, 1873{107}

NORTH CORRIDOR

Profiles in oil (Medallions in wall Panels)

• Jonathan Trumbull
• Daniel Morgan
• Israel Putnam
• Horatio Gates
• Thomas Mifflin
• Silas Deane
• Joseph Warren
• Richard Montgomery
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin

Large Fresco, “Signing of the First Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, 1782”

• John Adams
• Benjamin Franklin
• John Jay
• Henry Laurens
• Richard Oswald (for Great Britain)

Large Fresco, “Cession of Louisiana”

• Robert Livingston
• James Monroe
• Barbe-Marbois (for France)

Architect’s Reports, November 1, 1874, and November 1, 1875

WEST CORRIDOR

13 Oval Landscapes in Oil (Walls and Ceiling)

12 Signs of the Zodiac (ceiling)

Profiles in oil (Medallions in wall Panels)

• John Hancock
• Francis Hopkins
• Robert Livingston
• Roger Sherman
• John Jay
• Robert Morris
• Charles Thompson
• Charles Carroll

Large Fresco, Bellona, Roman Goddess of War

Vaulted Ceilings, Walls and Pilasters (Style of 15th Century)

Architect’s Report, November 1, 1875

MAIN CORRIDOR

14 Oval Landscapes in Oil (Walls and Ceiling)

Large Portraits in Oil (Walls)

• Justice Story
• Chancellor Kent

Profiles in Oil

• Andrew Jackson
• Henry Clay

Imitation Sculpture

• Chancellor Livingston

Brumidi Voucher, August 21, 1878

THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ROOM

Large Medallions (Profiles of Committee Chairmen)

• North wall—Henry Clay, Chairman, 1834 to 1836
• South wall—William S. Allen, Chairman, 1845 to 1846
• East wall—Simon E. Cameron, Chairman, 1871 to 1877
• West wall—Charles W. Sumner, Chairman, 1861 to 1871

Brumidi Voucher, June 21, 1874

CAPITOL ROTUNDA

Frieze Frescoes in Imitation Sculpture

(Seven finished by Brumidi)

• Landing of Columbus 1492
• Entry of Cortez into Mexico 1521
• Pizarro’s Conquest of Peru 1533
• Midnight Burial of DeSoto 1541
• Pocahontas Saving John Smith 1606
• Landing of the Pilgrims 1620
• Penn’s Treaty with the Indians 1682

Frieze Frescoes in Imitation Sculpture

(Original Designs made by Brumidi)

• Scene in Plymouth Colony 1620
• Peace Treaty, Oglethorpe and the Indians 1732
• Battle of Lexington 1775
• Reading of The Declaration of Independence 1776
• Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown 1781
• Death of Tecumseh 1813
• General Scott’s Entry into Mexico 1847
• Discovery of Gold in California 1848

Architect’s Reports, October 1, 1877; October 1, 1880; October 1, 1884

{108}

BRUMIDI VOUCHERS

1855

1856

1857

1858

1859

1860

1861

1863

1864

1865

1866

1867

1870

1871

1872

1873

1874

1877

TIME BOOK ENTRIES

1878

TIME BOOK ENTRIES

Aug. 24, 1878—For painting in Fresco the portraits of Justice Story, Chancellor Kent, at North end of Basement story—$400.00

For painting Bust in light and shade of Chancellor Livingston at same location—$100.00

1879

TIME BOOK ENTRIES

1880

TIME BOOK ENTRY

BRUMIDI EARNINGS BY YEARS

{111}

WORKING SKETCHES FOR THE ROTUNDA FRIEZE RECENTLY FOUND

The availability of the priceless scroll of working sketches for the Rotunda Frieze has been too late for detailed study at this time and almost too late for a place in this Brumidi book. However, the sketch of the Landing of the Pilgrims reproduced above gives the reader an opportunity to make his own comparisons between one working sketch and its actual rendition in fresco on the belt encircling the Rotunda of the Capitol, as appears on page forty-four.

James H. Rowe, grandnephew of Lola Germon, owns these working sketches for the Rotunda Frieze. The groupings, as planned by Brumidi and sketched on a long and narrow piece of brown wrapping paper, frequently spliced, bears the Brumidi signature and is dated 1859. This prize scroll, thirteen inches wide and some thirty feet long, was given to Mr. Rowe by his grand aunt, Lola Germon. It has been well protected.

The outline drawings themselves are executed in sepia water color with shadows in black and high lights in white. The original titles given to these scroll groupings and written by Brumidi in pencil beneath each sketch vary somewhat from the list preserved in the Architect’s office of the Capitol, yet the subject matter is essentially the same. Brumidi’s title for this “vast conception,” so far as I know, appears in no other record.

At the beginning of the scroll is the artist’s own penciled legend for the Rotunda Frieze, “America and History.{112}”

THIS STUDY OF “Constantino Brumidi, MICHELANGELO OF THE
UNITED STATES CAPITOL,” WAS PUBLISHED BY THE MONUMENTAL
PRESS, INC., WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 1950.